A year ago Sunday, God once again allowed my body to bring into this world yet another beautiful daughter. And, once again, our lives were changed forever.
Aveline Muir is now one year old. And I truly believe this was probably the quickest year of my life thus far. I know people tell us to treasure, savor, slow down these early years, and yet time still seems to fly no matter how hard we try.
From helpless newborn, to cruiser who is attempting to say words, it has been a fun and exciting path to share with this one. Avie is such the happy baby. I know I have said this before, but it continues to hold true nearly every time we make a public appearance -- I get comment after comment about how happy this child seems to be. It is like she exudes sunshine.
Any tears seem to come from injury (she somehow managed to collapse while standing at the leather bench upstairs this afternoon, and ended up with a slightly bloody mouth) or when something treasured is taken away from her (also this evening, she was extremely upset when she stubbornly had to give up her toothbrush). She also becomes very irritated during diaper changes now. She is too on-the-go to waste time laying around.
Aveline loves her sister. Obviously she is very aware of Elsa, but it became even more apparent to me how much so yesterday afternoon, as we were walking home from Gabriela's. Elsa was having a tough time with something, and by the time we reached the end of Gabriela's driveway, she decided she was not going to walk any further. I was tired and irritated, and just told her, "Fine -- catch up with us then." So I walked, Avie strapped to my front in the Ergo, toward the corner of our street. Avie kept arching her body and craning her neck to one side of my body or the other, saying over and over what I had previously thought to be her version of Elsa's name: "Eh-sa, Eh-sa, Eh-sa..." She was most definitely concerned that we were leaving her dear companion behind. (For the record, Elsa was stubborn enough to make me have to go back and get her, leading her all the way home by hand.)
She and Elsa have started playing a little more together here and there. Lately, they have enjoyed crawling after one another and echoing shrieks and laughter. Avie got one of those magnetic doodle lap pads for her birthday, and the two of them were sitting on the living room floor this morning, Avie working the pen, and Elsa using the shapes.
Unlike her sister, Avie is only slightly interested in books and is not too consistent with her sign language. But she does have her favorite books (still Goodnight Moon and now Birthday Monsters [though she seems to think they are dogs, using her sign language to indicate so). And she also does use sign language, but just when she really feels like it.
She loves to be mobile, though, this girl. She also got a wooden walker wagon for her birthday, and I turned my back for a second while vacuuming, only to turn back around and see her standing in the front of it, holding onto the handle from the opposite side she should be. She crawls fast when she sees something of interest, making the most fabulous happy sounds all the way there. She pulls up on everything and tries to climb. Elsa never figured out how to climb out of her crib, but I have my bets on Avie.
Avie also loves to eat. There are a handful of things she might turn her nose up at, but she will eat nearly everything I place in front of her. The other day she ate an entire hot dog (minus the bun), and out at brunch the morning of her birthday, I did not think I was going to ever stop placing food in front of her -- berries, eggs, chicken sausage, grilled potatoes. I tried cow's milk on her yesterday, and at first I thought she really liked it. She would take a sip, pause, really contemplate the taste in her mouth, and then take another quick sip and repeat the entire process. But today she seemed a little more uncertain and was not drinking too much of it. I know it was a taste Elsa had to get used to, and I am sure it will be the same for Avie.
At her one-year well visit yesterday, Aveline weighed 20 pounds (somewhere between the 25th and 50th percentile), was 30 inches long (90th percentile), and had a head circumference of 18 inches (between 75th and 90th percentile). She received one vaccination at this visit (another round of polio), which was given to her while I held her, outward faced from me, and she did not even flinch. Dr. Owen thought she looked healthy and did not seem to have any concerns... except for the fact that Avie still gets up once or twice a night. She has informed me that it is time to call it quits. She no longer needs to nurse in the middle of the night and is just using it as a way to soothe, so she says we should put her in the portable crib in another room for the week it should take, and just let her cry it out, sending Jarrett in every so often to pat her back and assure her she is okay. I predict this to be terribly hard for me, as since she has been such an easy baby during the day, I have put up with the wakings at night. But I am also certainly ready to sleep through the night myself, so I hope this works as quickly as Dr. Owen projects. I also hope it does not give Elsa any grand ideas that she is suddenly going to have their bedroom all to herself.
There is so much more I could probably say about our sweet Aveline, but mostly we are just so happy and blessed to have her in our family. Each of our girls contributes an amazing slice of life to this family. I cannot imagine having it any other way.
Happy birthday, dear one. May your sunshine glow brightly over the years to come.
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