I should have written this a month ago because Aviana is now 16 months.  But I had a bit of a break from blogging and it’s been in draft whilst I focused my attention on National Infertility Awareness Week!  Whoops! Anyway, enough of the excuses…what do I have to say about 15 months?

I was led to believe tantrums were a 2-3 year old issue, but when Aviana turned 14 months they kind of came out of no where!  Aviana entered her 9th leap with an entrance.  Wow, she was touchy over seemingly small things.  Part of it I think was because she was still learning to walk, she knows what she wants and couldn’t physically quite do it all.  She was also starting to be ‘naughty’.  I say ‘naughty’ because actually she is just experimenting, it’s natural.  But it was definitely time to introduce some limits and apply diversion tactics.  Chris and I have spent several months reading up on discipline, agreeing our approaches in advance, discussing potential scenarios and planning how we might tackle toddler life with Aviana.  This has proven to be helpful because we are beginning to start to recognise situations where Aviana needs some help through the challenging times – ummm and of course ourselves dealing with those challenges!

Aviana also became extremely picky over eating, perhaps its because her molars and her bottom fangs were coming through all at once!  Planning food was becoming a little bit stressful, making sure that there was at least one thing in her meal we knew she would eat.  Even then there were times she simply refused her favourites.  Teething molars? I say eughhhhh, hurry up and be done with it!

Along with the downsides there are equally the upsides to be a parent of a toddler.  Can I just say one word to sum up the upsides – ADORABLE!  I love seeing Aviana learn new things literally everyday, and it is adorable.  Her personality is wicked, she loves laughing, she is brave (on her own, not so much in groups of people).  She is super SMART and is quick to learn. Aviana LOVES the playground, and loves all push along toys.  She loves going to the free zoo and watching the fishes and meeting the cats.

She can communicate really well through sign language and gesturing.  By the time she went for her 15mth wellness visit she could say more than ten words when the doctor only expects one or two. She was saying mummy, daddy, dog, cat, Diesel, Sush (our cats), tree, more, bath, mouse, cheese, porridge, snack, cheese and probably more I can’t remember.  The funniest word she has learned is lizard – which sounds more like “li-lar”.  Too cute. She also knows what comes after one. Clearly she doesn’t know what that really means, but the fact that she assumes two always comes after one is cute.

Watching Aviana play pretend is awesome.  She makes a cup of tea, shows empathy towards cuddly toys, and plays with her smart go-go animals. She will happily sit and colour-in with crayons (although we are having fun trying to teach her to sit at her little table when she has crayons in her hand so she doesn’t draw all over the furniture and walls!).

I am so excited for the next few months as she gets more confidence in her gross motor skills.  I can see it will get a bit more frustrating for her as she can’t say everything she wants to communicate to us, so we need to keep up our skills in baby sign, but as her needs and desires become more complex I feel there will be some times where we have no clue what she is asking for! Yeyy!