Davis Family: Avalon's Fifteen Month Update

Unlike her brother, Avalon is very good about posing for photos these days so this post will have many more photos and hopefully less text than her brother's update. Of course the big news is that Avalon is now walking!!! She took her first steps at the end of January, five days before she was burned (see post below). She walked quite a bit at first--as many as 10 steps at a time the first day! However, once she was burned and had the bandage on her arm her balance was totally thrown off and she stopped walking completely. However, she regained her confidence and on March 1st she started walking and never really looked back. She was about 14-months-old. As a reference, Waylon was 13-months when he started walking. She is very stable, but sometimes walks like she has a peg leg.

Avalon looks younger than other kids her age, and definitely appears younger than Waylon did at this age. I dont think she is behind developmentally, but she is shorter than other kids and still insists on many "baby" things such as a bottle for milk and jarred baby food. She is incredibly stubborn (hmmm, wonder where she gets that quality?). Avalon will drink water from a sippy cup, but absolutely refuses any milk if its not from a bottle and not sufficiently warmed up. She also is an insanely picky eater and will not even try new foods. All she wants to eat are carbs and dairy. Other than that she really only likes ham, green beans, and bananas. We have resorted to feeding her jarred baby food at least one meal per day just to get her filled up. I know that pretty soon we will have to be firm and only offer table food, but I just haven't been willing to deal with her nightime wakings if she goes to bed with a semi-empty stomach.

Avalon is still a great night sleeper and on the weekends she does well with two naps at home. However, at daycare the naps were not going well. She just transitioned this week to one nap per day at school and its going much better. Most days she naps for 2.5 hours. It will be wonderful when she and Waylon are sleeping at the same time. Maybe we can actually go out for family outings during the mornings!

Avalon does not have a lovey, although I bought her several. She often likes to carry around PJ's, but only when she is awake. She also LOVES kleenex/napkins/or rags. She will scream and cry if she sees anything like that, and once we give it to her she instantly walks around "cleaning" and refuses to let go of her prized possession. She also loves playing with sippy cups and tupperware, but that is probably because those cabinets and drawer are the only things in the kitchen that are not baby proofed.

Our biggest concern at this point is her lack of vocabulary. After dealing with Waylon's speech issues, which were due to hearing loss from fluid in his inner ear, we are very hyper-sensitive about Avalon's speech. She used to say "doggie" all of the time, but has since stopped. She now says "Ma ma" constantly and also says "ball," "dah" for down, attempts to say balloon when she sees one, "Da da," "Bubba" sometimes, and babbles a lot. I may be missing a few other words, but not very many. She will also mimic Waylon's silly noises. Unlike Waylon, Avalon seems to have good receptive language skills and will do tasks such as picking up a ball when asked, or pointing to well known objects in books such as a picture of banana when I tell her to point. She relies on sign language ("eat," "more," and "all done") to get her basic needs met. Plus, she is very cute while pointing and grunting so that she gets everything she wants without having to say anything. We are definititely keeping an eye on things and will insist on an assesment soon if she doesn't improve. We know from experience that it cant hurt to get everything checked out!

Avalon at 13 1/2 months