The Official One Year Checkup

Abby went in for her one year doctor appointment today. The best line of the visit: "She's very verbal for her age." Tell me about it.

She's in the 85th percentile for her length, which is 30.25 inches. Her weight was a little less than what we had it pegged at: 19 pounds, 12 ounces, which puts her in the thirtieth percentile! Talk about lean!

The worst part of the visit, of course, was the shot, her third in the Hib series. (One more left, hallelujah!) But she was already screaming because we were making her lie down, so the shot might not have been that bad, honestly--she was probably more annoyed than anything else. Within two minutes she was chatting away again. Oh, and we can see her top teeth coming in! Finally!

What a difference 365 days makes!

Today is Abby's birthday! All day we've been playing the "what were we doing at this time last year?" game. I just can't believe it's been an entire year. It doesn't feel like it's been that long.

We had a party with her friends on the 19th, and then we did a family party on the 24th so Aunt Kelli & Uncle Kyle could be there--they left Christmas afternoon to go to Kelli's parents' place and won't be back till January. Even after all that present opening she still doesn't really get the concept--we'd end up unwrapping everything and trying to get her to take some interest in it when all she really wanted to do was play with the gift bags or scraps of wrapping paper. Figures, eh?

In the last few days she's really turned a corner with her eating and sleeping. Two days in a row she went to sleep in the house instead of needing to be driven around in the car. Three days in a row she's actually let me feed her, and she's eating 1.5-2 jars of food at every meal. (Although she just now ate FOUR jars for dinner!) And for the last couple weeks she's been sleeping for 1-1.5 hours at naptime, which is a welcome improvement from the half-hour to forty-five minute naps she's been taking for months. And the other night she slept for seven straight hours before waking to eat! A dream come true! 'Course she didn't do that the next two nights, but who knows, maybe she's slowly turning towards that. (Please, God, let her be turning towards that!)

Here are some pictures from the last few days. Enjoy!


Her first kilt, courtesy of our Scottish relatives (who had a grandson born on the same day as Abby last year!). She wore this on Christmas Eve.


She's been so good with the tree--she got the concept of being gentle with the ornaments, although she really liked taking them off, too. Then one day she started trying to put them back on. Adorable!


"So what's the deal with this unwrapping thing again?"


Abby's first cake! I'd tried to make some oatmeal apple muffins instead because I really didn't want her having the sugar of a cake, but they didn't turn out and I ended up having to run to the store the morning of the party to get a cake. Turns out she only stuck her fingers in her mouth once and wasn't at all pleased with the taste--thank you, God!

So funny I can't think of a proper title for the post to do it justice

This is from a message board for women who breastfeed. It is HILARIOUS. (It's also British, so for those who don't know, Tesco is a grocery store.)

Went to Abigail's school Christmas concert (no "proper" Nativity this year). Each class did a little something followed by a song or 2. Anyway, Ab's class did a Nativity scene, with Ab as Mary (How proud was I?). A few mins into their bit Ab promptly lifted her dress & shoved baby Jesus up it. The script then wandered away from what they'd learnt & goes as follows....

Joseph: "What are you doing?"
Mary: "I'm feeding our baby"
Shepherd: "Have you got a bottle up there then?"
Mary: "Don't be silly, he's having milk from my booby"
Joseph: "That's disgusting"
Mary: "No, that baby milk they have in Tesco's is disgusting. My baby's having proper milk"
Shepherd: "What's a booby?"
Mary: "Those sticky out bits ladies have"
Shepherd: "They're not boobies, they're nipples"
Mary: "No they're not, they're boobies"
Joseph: "So why can't Jesus have milk from a bottle then?"
Mary: "Because I haven't got a breast pump with me - you forgot to put it on the donkey"
Shepherd: "Can't you ask the teacher for a bottle to feed Jesus with?"
Mary: "No because this is the best way to feed Jesus. Anyway bottles haven't been invented yet & even if they were I've just had a baby so if you think I'm faffing about round Tesco's to buy baby milk when I make proper milk in my boobies you can think again"

I felt a teeny bit sorry for their class teacher - she did try her best to steer them back towards their proper lines but she was laughing so much she didn't really stand a chance. The line about Joseph forgetting the breast pump finished her off - she slid to the floor & couldn't get up for laughing....

Closing in on one year

It's a real shocker to think that I'm pretty much the mother of a toddler already. Now a whole lot that's still babyish about this baby, other than perhaps her inability to talk. She walks like a pro (although is still unclear on the concept of looking where she's going), dances to anything that vaguely resembles music (my cell phone's ring, me making senseless "do-do-dee-doo" ditties), and is frighteningly fast at mimicking anything we do. For example, she and Dan were playing with a ball the other day, and when he hit it with his hand, she'd hit it back with her hand, and when he hit it with his foot, she'd hit it with her foot, even if she had to grab it from somewhere else and put it on front of her foot to do it.

And the other day, Dan was trying to dress her while she stood up, and when he said, "Lift your foot" so he could put on her pants--she did! And she did it again for the other foot, too! So stinkin' cute. And handy.

If only we could tell her, "Lie down and rest" and have her do it. I'm praying for that day.

Technical difficulties

First of all, whoa. Sorry it's been for-freaking-ever since I posted. Time moves too fast, man. Grr.

Anyway, my main blog is experiencing technical difficulties, just so you know. Going to it will bring you to my website. Hopefully we'll be back up again soon. Keep checking back, things happen quick!

Pilates, baby edition

I was a big pilates fan back before I met Dan, and it's one of those things I go back to now and then when I'm feeling motivated. Well, I've been feeling mighty motivated lately, so I've been using my morning time with Abby to do the quick version of the video I used to watch. 'Course it becomes a whole 'nuther experience when Abby decides this is just the most hilarious thing she's ever seen and she just has to get involved.

I lie down to do the first exercise--the 100, which you do flat on your back with your legs straight up in the air--and suddenly I'm Abby's speed bump for her to walk on.

I move on to the roll-up, which starts flat on the back and involves slowly sitting up and reaching for your toes and then slowly going back to your back, all without bending your legs or lifting them off the floor. Abby sits at my feet, and instead of reaching for my toes, I reach for that tubby baby belly and thighs and tickle her, and she laughs that wonderful baby laugh that motivates me to do just one more...

Then on to the leg lifts where you lie flat back and trace capital D's in the air with your toes, but I'm tracing some funky cursive letters trying to avoid kicking Abby in the head as she steps over the leg that is still on the floor.

She finally tires of me and my leg-waving shenanigans and takes off for the other end of the room, so I manage to squeeze in the rest of the exercises on my back without any issues. But then I roll to my side for the "side leg series" (my favorite part of the Windsor pilates exercise videos--can I get an Amen from anyone who's tried it?) and it's a new game for Abby. She's grabbing my leg and "petting" my hair and flopping herself over my body while I try to count out leg lifts. I'm working out muscles I didn't know I had trying to keep my balance and (again) not kick Abby in the head (which works most of the time).

And by the time I'm finally done, my t-shirt is soaked, not in sweat but baby drool, my hair is a ratty mess from little hands playing beauty salon, and the stomach and butt muscles I haven't felt in a year and a half are screaming their names. Rather than the ten minutes it used to take, it's a twenty-minute (at least) endeavor. But I'm just going to assume those extra minutes of rolling on the floor with a giggly wiggly Abby are burning some calories, too.

She kissed me!

Oh how cute. Last night she started head-butting our lips when we puckered up, and this morning she started "kissing" my knee (of all things) with those great baby lip-presses.

I can't wait till she knows just what all those kisses (and toe-nibbles and raspberries and exclamations of "Oh my goodness I could just eat you up!") mean...

Taking Peek-a-boo to the next level

Dan and I were outside the other day, finally taking down the Easy-Up that's been in our backyard since July. We'd corralled Abby in the family room with a complicated configuration of furniture while we tackled the task, and about fifteen minutes later we were back inside, discussing how to handle the tree full of bees we discovered outside our dining room window. (It's never good when the sound of their buzzing is so loud it sounds like someone's a/c unit working overtime.)

So I'm in the kitchen washing my hands when I hear Dan say, "Do you have Abby?"

"No, she's in the family room still."

"Um...no she's not."

Panic.

I'm racing around the ground floor, which takes all of 1.6 seconds since our place is just not that big, and nope, she's not in the family room, or under the dining room table, or in her fortress, which is the living room all fences off and chock-full of her toys. I'm about the check the utility room and garage when I hear, "Well hi there, sweetie!" I follow Dan's voice UPSTAIRS.

Yes, she traversed the entire staircase alone: 13 steps, including a rather large landing and a 90 degree corner. Images of her tumbling like a slinky splatter themselves all over my brain, and Dan looks like he's seen a ghost he's so pale from nerves.

Abby, on the other hand, looks like she just conquered Everest, the stinker. She's so proud of herself, you can just tell. We, on the other hand, are looking for asprin to head off the heart attacks we think we might be about to have.

But at least we know she knows how to climb stairs. For what that's worth.

Who turns the world on with her smile?

princess abby
Originally uploaded by AlisonMorrow.

So today was a sucky day. First, I took Abby to the pumpkin patch with a friend and her son and took all sorts of great photos of the two of them amongst the pumpkins, sitting on haybales, all sorts of cute things. Then I got home and realized the camera didn't have the memory card in it. Sayonara pictures. Then I spend an hour covering one of her walking toys (this little cart-type thing she can hold on to for balance while she walks) with adorable pink material so she'd have something to hold onto at the church's harvest party tonight. But then we got there and realized she would never use it, just try to pull the material off, so all that work was for naught. Then I spent the afternoon turning the house upside down looking for a necklace I bought for a friend, only to realize after working myself into a fuming mess that I never actually bought the necklace, only thought about it.

And then we put Abby in her Halloween costume and it made me smile. So worth it.

Not again

Okay, 6:15 is way too early, too. How long does it take babies to figure out Daylight Savings?! Please tell me she'll get it tomorrow.

Notes for Improvement

Babies need a Daylight Savings Time setting, because 6:30AM is TOO EARLY.

Disneyland!

So we broke down and bought annual passes for Disneyland a couple weeks ago. Dan's brother goes there with his family every time they're in town, and we're tired of not being able to join them! So when they were here we went with and introduced Abby to the World of Disney.

We didn't really know what to expect with Abby. Would the crowds bother her, the noise, having to be in the stroller? Would she sleep? Would she cry the whole time? We figured that was the beauty of the annual pass; if she wigged out we'd just go home. But wow, did she do great! She slept on the way there, ate a nice big breakfast, and was all smiles until she went back to sleep in my arms at 12:30. Slept for 45 minutes, woke up and ate, played on her stroller (her new favorite thing to do) while we waited for everyone else to get back from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and was all smiles while we walked around and went on her first ride (the Storybook Land boat ride). She went on three rides total: Storybook Land, Heimlich's Chew Chew Train in the Bug's Life section of California Adventure, and the Monsters Inc. ride that I really thought would make her cry because it was so loud (not that we knew that until it was too late) but she did great. She fell asleep again at 7:30 and slept most of the way home. What a doll!


Of course, we had to get her mouse ears. When we found these, we were so glad we'd waited and not gotten the standard black ones earlier in the day. The patch has Belle, Cinderella, and Snow White as little girls, and it says, "My First Ear Hat" above it.


It was a great day. Dan and I went back with my Mom a few days later; she and Dad are getting passes, too. It'll be great to have someone watch Abby so Dan and I can go on rides together--Indiana Jones, Soaring Over California, and Space Mountain (where I'm terrified of but promised Dan I'd try) are just not the same when you go alone!

She walks!

Okay, not all the time, and not for long distances, but Abby has officially begun to walk. We even managed to get her second attempt on film, and she took, like, 5 steps. It was awesome. You can see her thinking about it: setting her feet straight, slowly letting go of whatever she's holding on to, lifting that first foot. SO cute. And she's been acting today as though she's discovering her feet for the first time again. I think maybe she's realizing she controls them. It's hilarious.

Another tooth is about to make its appearance, right next to the one she already has. I think last night it gave her some problems; she screamed on the way home from Chili's in a way she's never screamed before. It was awful. Once the Motrin kicked in and we got to my parents' place she went down for a nap and slept for about an hour. Poor girl. Aren't you glad you don't remember teething? Sheesh, talk about traumatic.

So I think this week we're going to take her to the pumpkin patch. I don't know what all you do there, to be honest, but we've heard from friends which one in our area is a good one to go to, so go we will. She's going to be a princess for Halloween, not that we'll go trick-or-treating, but we'll go to our church's harvest party and socialize a while. It's all for the scrapbook page I can make from the photos, really. :) And the fact that she is off-the-charts adorable in the costume we found. Pictures will be posted eventually...

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifViolette Between blog tour!

So this week, Wednesday-Friday, is the official blog tour for Violette Between There are around 60 people posting, I think, so I'm really excited to see how my rankings go. If you'd like to participate, please email me and I'll send you the necessary links. Props to my peeps at the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance for taking part, and a special thank you to all the folks in the blogosphere who've jumped on board to help out. :)

Location, Location, Location

So we've been doing the baby food thing for about 4 months now, and we'd decided over the last few weeks that she really just wasn't into it and simply preferred to nurse. We'd manage to get maybe 8 or 10 bites MAX into her before she'd clamp her lips shut (cute, albeit infuriating) and whip her head away from the spoon. Every once in a while she'd eat super well and we'd think she'd turned a corner, and then she'd go back to her picky ways.

Then last week we noticed how well she ate in her carseat. Or at my parents' place. Or at the park. Or in the stroller. Or sitting on the table at T.G.I.Friday's. Or (her favorite) standing in the playroom. And then we realized she just really doesn't like the high chair. Now she eats close to a whole jar of food three times a day! Quite the improvement from a jar over three days.

So far she's tried: carrots, green beans, peas, winter squash, sweet potato, apples, bananas, pears, and I feel like there's more but I can't remember. Anyway, this week we're trying a pear-raspberry mix. Mm!

Really Overdue Update

I HAVE NO TIME TO BLOG. It's driving me crazy, too. Anyway, here's the skinny on what The Kid's up to these days:

WHAT SHE SAYS:
Oh heavens, all sorts of noises! All the usual ba-ba, ma-ma (actually more like "mom-mom"), da-da (which I swear she knows means Dan), plus some general vowel-soup vocalizations and the occasional staccato "Huzzah!" She's also started sticking her tongue out and doing the "pbpbpbpth." (Or however it is you spell that noise.) Oh, and I swear she said, "Hey dad!" this morning. Dan heard it too, it's not just proud mama's imagination.

WHAT SHE DOES:
Cruising along the furniture in this cute, tip-toe crossover step. She is so good at standing, too! She'll plant herself and stay there for a minute or more, and even crouch down to grab stuff off the floor and stand back up without even a wobble. She crawls quickly now, too. She has this thing with knocking stuff over; if you stack up her fuzzy blocks she'll crawl from wherever she is in the room justto smack them down. Over. And over. And over. She does not tire of this game at all. She's also one-finger exploring: she'll scratch her pointer finger over the carpet, or a stuffed animal, or a book, or the new rubber alphabet floor we put down in the living room, or Dan's belly button, over and over and over, while bent over the thing and concentrating very hard. So adorable. She smacks her hand on stuff, too, a bunch of times in a row, sometimes accompanied by a hearty "Ah! Ah! Ah!" Give her a gavel and she'd made a great judge. The carseat is no longer a fun place for her; she starts crying pretty quickly after we put her in it, but if we turn on her beloved Praise Baby DVD the crying ceases immediately and she gets a look of joy and wonder on her little face, like, "Where is that magical music coming from!?"

She's nearly 9 months. I'm stunned.

First Steps

How perfect: Abby was standing in front of me, facing Dan a few feet away. Dan says, "Abby, start walking." AND SHE DID! Her first step*!! Just one step, though, after which she went to her knees and crawled the rest of the way to him. When she stood up, he turned her to face me, and she did it again! Too much fun. And so obedient, too!

*Okay, in the name of full disclosure, my mom said she took a step last night while she was baby-sitting. But I choose not to believe Abby's done something for the first time unless Daddy or I are on hand to witness it. Those were just for practice.

We have a tooth!

We were at Babies R Us on Friday, and Abby was hanging out in the cart and getting a little impatient with our shopping. So I started making silly noises to make her laugh, and when she did, I saw something on her gum. Upon closer inspection I realized it wasn't something on her gum, but in it! A tooth! Bottom left, just barely through but definitely there. No fussing or crying or anything to let us know it was on its way, and just a slight increase in the buckets of drool she usually produces. May the rest of them all be so easy!

Adventures at Angels Stadium

Thanks to our friends Marcela and Brian, we got to go to the Angels vs. Red Sox game on Thursday night. We weren't sure how it would go with Abby, since all she wants these days is to crawl and walk, but they were bringing their 10-month-old, Brendan, so I figured Marcela and I could take the kids for a walk if they started getting antsy.

We got there a few minutes after it had started (thanks, traffic) and Abby slept the entire way there, so that was fantastic timing. She was in a good mood going in, and for the first two innings she did great on my lap, standing and bouncing and being entertained by the woman behind us and by Brendan. Then the foul ball came.

We were in row G behind third base--prime broken bat and foul ball territory. Dan and Brian sat on our right so they could shield us from anything that happened to come winging our way. Well, a foul ball got smacked straight to our section, and when I realized it was actually coming really close, I hunched over Abby and tried to cover her head with my arm. The ball went about two rows in front of us, but someone behind us tried to go for it anyway (why?!?!) and landed ON ME. I got smashed into the top edge of the chair's back and my cheek got smooshed, too. I felt like Id have a bruise under my eye, but thankfully I didn't, although I do have a knot on my back from the chair back. And even though Abby didn't get touched, she did get a little squashed when I got squashed, and she was totally traumatized.

She sobbed for quite a while, and then, when she settled down, it was like she was in shock. Dan held her for 15 minutes and she never moved; just had her face pressed against his chest, staring at nothing, looking stunned. After a while I took her and put her in my new (and totally awesome) sling, and she did the same thing: just sat there, huddled against me, not moving.

After a while, around inning 6, I nursed her (my first nursing in public experience, and no one around us was the wiser, thanks to that sling!), because I figured she had to be hungry (hadn't eaten since before we left!) and maybe that would snap her out of it. And it did! They played "Feel Good, Inc." which is a song by The Gorillaz, and Dan and I sing the little intro to her sometimes and it makes her laugh, and when I sang along she smiled. I pulled her out of the sling and stood her up and it was like she'd just woken up: looking around, checking things out as though seeing them for the first time. Poor baby girl. Dan and I felt awful that she was so freaked out. But even after all that she didn't get wigged out by the cheering and yelling and gasping of the 43,000+ crowd. Personal growth! Yay Abby!

Progress

At My Gym yesterday we did the bubble thing again, and Abby didn't cry! Yay! I don't have a wimpy child!

She's all over the furniture now, doing the whole cruising thing. No more plopping her on the floor so I can run to the bathroom or go put my contacts in in the mornings. *sigh*