Last month Aviana turned two. Wow.
At two years old she surprises me every day. She is going through a language explosion right now. She says new words completely out of the blue so we have to be careful now about swearing! One day she just randomly started counting to 20. She knows her abcs and can read some of the letters. Again, randomly she started pointing out letters. Suddenly I felt underprepared for her learning to read. She speaks in 4 or 5 word sentences and has memorized many nursery rhymes – her favourite being twinkle twinkle little star and incey wincey spider. She also knows all her colours – she impressed the doctor at around 21 mths with all her colour knowledge!
One of Aviana’s favourite hobbies is reading. Some nights we can end up reading her 5 or 6 books before bed or even more if she is allowed to. She is not picky over her books and will read them over and over so that she can memorise the story and join in the reading. One day she started recanting the Christmas story! Some of her favourite books are all her Julia Donaldson books, including the Gruffalo, and some recent favourites are ‘The Pout Pout Fish’ and Sparkle the Unicorn.
Aviana’s favourite toy is her kitchen (she calls it her kitchen disco – another good book BTW!) followed probably by duplo, play doh and stickers. She is insanely good with stickers and is quite a perfectionist with them, they have to be just right.
Aviana likes to help us out in the kitchen – she has some steps so she can reach the surface, although she is still a little too short. She rather enjoys making a cake and helping daddy with daddy pancakes. She will also help load the dishwasher!
Aviana LOVES going to the Little gym, swinging around, roly polys, dancing around on the mats, just learning new gymnastic skills in general.
She also loves going to the zoo, playing in the park (particular the swings, she could swing easily for half an hour without stopping if she was allowed to).
Her favourite TV shows are pocoyo (narrated by Steven Fry and he is brilliant!) and baby bum….she can also be distracted with pretty much anything on the TV if she were allowed to be, which we discovered on our family trip back to the UK recently! (THANK YOU NETFLIX!!!!)
Things Aviana doesn’t like to do….in typical two year old fashion – get dressed, get undressed, have her hair dried with the hair dryer, going out in the cold, eat too many types of vegetables (she currently eats frozen peas, corn on the cob/sweetcorn/cucumber and raw carrots-kind of). She is also quite shy and reserved until she knows a place and person.
Aviana sleeps from around 7.30 PM to around 6-7AM with the odd occasion beyond 7 (of course that’s the day we have to go to work), she naps for around 2 hours but can survive without a nap – bedtime is just ugly. I would say overall she is a good sleeper and we are very lucky that she is easy going to get to sleep (thus far!)
She still has her last 4 molars to come through although I suspect she has been teething these for well over a month now, perhaps even longer than that. She is not so great at brushing her teeth…it is the one thing that she has complete and utter control over. Having said that, the dentist said her teeth are very good (particularly as she is thumb sucker). I wish there was some easy way to get her teeth clean!!!!
Hmmmm what else can I say about this girl? Her sense of humour is wicked, something definitely taught/inherited by Chris. Sometimes it’s hard to not laugh when she does something she probably shouldn’t be doing because she does it in such a hilarious way! This age is so much fun (minus the tantrums).
Photo credits to Max Turner
The Inconceivable Adventures of Parenthood 
Good with colour? Has Aviana inherited her mama’s artistic streak?
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Haha – maybe! She’s good with naming her colours ☺️
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Ugh yes the teeth brushing! I am so glad I am not alone in that! My daughter is almost 20 months and I have been trying to start brushing her teeth more but it is so hard to fight her and pry her mouth open…the whole thing is just miserable!
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That’s cool that she loves books so much!
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Its great! But I do get a bit bored of reading the same one over and when I ask her if we can read a different one-please….no mummy, this one!! 🤣
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Happy birthday Aviana! Amazing photos… ours are just phone snaps. So cute! She sounds like such a character. I’m amazed by how much other two year olds (particularly girls) can speak – there does seem to be quite a gender difference in the kids we know in that respect! Oh and B loves brushing his teeth!
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It’s fascinating the gender difference in speaking and language development. I’m just reading a book at the moment that discusses the biological aspect of early language development (my side hobby is reading about psychology 😬)
Aghhhh brushing teeth – can you tell me all your secrets???!!!
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Ah, I did psych for my U/G! Re teeth, I don’t know – he’s always just liked it. But I do let him do it at his own pace and haven’t tried to force it. Tbh I’m not religious about it and have tried to make it more into something he can “choose” to do, so he thinks it’s a treat! 😂 (Reverse psychology?!) I just say I’m going to clean my teeth and he follows me. We have a little step by the sink and he likes climbing up on that and sticking his toothbrush under the tap. (Also loves washing his hands!) And I let him just chew on it or do whatever for however long he wants to do it. He’s in the stage of copying so at least he will do something similar to what I’m doing!
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Happy birthday Avianna. Does she have a British or American accent? I always wondered :). I hope Lucky will have my accent but that’s never going to happen. LOL.
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This is a very good question! And one I’m fascinated with. Her accent is British right now – except for one particular phrase she says. She can also use the appropriate word to us – ie. nappy v diaper, trash can v bin. I fully expect her accent to develop in the next few months as our influences in language development lower.
I’m intrigued if she will be more American with her American friends and British with us and our British friends/family!
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It is very fascinating. I imagine she’ll have a really adorable mixed accent for a while before she goes to school full time.
Side note: I like that I got N to say nappy and dummy instead of diaper and pacifier. LOL!
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