Mooserific!

Jingle bells

Abigail’s favorite Christmas song: “Jingle Bells” (jingle bayuhls). One of my favorite things about the holidays: getting more sleep! We finished nursing at 18 months (on exactly 12/8), and now silly gooser is finally sleeping through the night most nights. It’s so nice. One of my other favorite things has been how excited she is about all of the Christmas excitement. She loved wrapping presents (“wrap presents”), the decorated Christmas tree (“wow!”), and seeing all of her aunties (including “Georgia” - Abigail’s new name for Auntie Em). As the pictures show, it’s been a nice holiday.

Whoa dude!

Quick bit of Abigail humor. Her word (well, words) of the day yesterday was: “whoa dude!” Grandma said this when she spilled some milk and Abigail thought it was hilarious! Grandma said Abigail gave a full belly laugh, and kept laughing while she said it over and over again. We were treated to it last night. Everything was “whoa dude!” She was happy to repeat it and laugh every time we said it too.

She also thinks “no way” is too funny. And, when asked how many of anything she has she says: “three.” I’ll say “really?” She then says something like: “eight,” “ten,” “nine.” I’m amazed that she already understands numbers. We’re now really working on counting. One, two, three…

Two apps

I’ve been busy writing web apps lately.

The first is called DropShrink. It quickly and easily reduces the size of PDF files.

The second is a fun little calculator called Fractions. I came up with the idea while doing some wood-working. Its claim to fame is how well it handles… fractions.

Tutus and trucks

Gosh, where to start?  Our girl is such a super bundle of energy, words, songs, and growth these days.  She spent most of the past few days climbing on everything and talking non-stop.  And, of course, worrying her mama and papa.  She got only one head bonk, but we feared far more.  Her current favorite is to hoist herself up on the kitchen bench so she can pull out the kitchen chair and dance between the two.  She also enjoys climbing in and out of her highchair, and into her mama’s outstretched (nervous) arms.

When she’s not climbing she likes to “read!”  A hand-me-down truck book is much loved these days.  ”Truck!” “Truck!”  (Almost all of her words sound like they should end in an exclamation point.) She can easily identify the “tracta” (tractor), “bus,” and every “hat” in the book.  She also loves the “dog.”  Of course, she’s named him “bingo.”  John and I got a kick out of the fact that she spent most of a past Sunday reading about trucks while wearing a tutu.

This morning, she grabbed her sing-along Elmo books and insisted we take them to her grandparents’ house.  These books are like the truck book: ones that I reluctantly allowed on her bookshelf.  They too are favorites right now.  No doubt as a result of much Barney watching, she can sing the songs just based on the music.  We sang The Wheels on the Bus over and over and over again this morning.  ”More!” “Gin” (Again).  I’m amazed that she knows words to songs and can already sing along with me.  This evening, it was “I Love Me” (her hilarious rearranging of the Barney theme song) and over the weekend The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

In other news, at bedtime tonight, she took her first full bottle of cows milk — without hesitation.  She also let me turn on her night light and put her to bed wide awake.  I’m hopeful the night light helps, but also thinking I’m going to feel awfully stupid if a better night’s sleep required nothing more than a little lightbulb.

Our little helper

It’s been far too long since our last post, and lots has happened since then. In just a few days, our Abigail will be seventeen months old and she’s quite the accomplished talker now. Her vocabulary grows by many words every day. As I type this, she’s happily shouting “dog” while watching a Barney episode about a dog show. She loves this episode. She also just told me to “look” at her while she hung a toy from her arm, and then grabbed a book and told me to “read.”. She’s not yet speaking in full sentences, but she did ask John for more crackers the other day by saying “Pappa. Cracker. More.” That’s pretty close to a full sentence!

I got excited about posting something here yesterday when she got up in the morning, pulled her laundry basket out of her closet, and declared “launny.” She knows that we usually wash the laundry on Thursdays, and she was ready to get started. She’s quite the helper. She also really likes to help us empty the dishwasher. I’m still amazed by how much she likes to “help.”

The other night, we were trying to encourage better sleeping habits. Our girl surprised us. She fussed for Momma, but I didn’t get up. She then called for Papa. When Papa didn’t respond, she called for “Dino.” When Dino didn’t respond, she decided to go back to sleep.

Here’s a cute picture from Halloween. She loves kitties.

More milestones

We’ve spent this weekend amazed by the sudden number of words our Abigail can say like: cheese, water, car, up, pull, pool, book, hot, kitty, baby, teeth, eye, and ball. If it were earlier in the day, I’m sure we could think of more, but we’re both very tired. The neatest part is that she’s now asking for things. She says water when she wants water, cheese when she wants cheese, and up when she wants to be picked up. That’s a pretty cool milestone. And, yet another is that she’ll retrieve things when we ask for them. This morning I asked her to bring me a book that we seldom read (the monkey says “ooo ooo ooo” book) and she dug around on her book shelf and brought it to me. She’ll also fetch her baby if we ask her “where’s your baby?” Now last, but not least, we’ve discovered that we like Barney. It’s tough to admit, but Abigail gets really interested, excited even, when we turn it on. The favorite is a Barney sing and dance episode. She participates during the song “if you’re happy and you know it.” It’s pretty cute.

One year!

It’s already been one year, and I can’t believe it!  My how our girl has grown!  I keep saying to John “we really need to write that down” and so here I am.  

Here are some accomplishments from her first year. As of today, Abigail says Abigail, baby, kitty, hi, hey, bye, pappa (her current favorite word), and mamma.  She also understands a ton of words and sentences.  She grabs my hand when I say “let’s go to the kitchen” or “let’s go to mamma and pappa’s room.”  She will retrieve toys when we say “go get Elmo” or will bring toys to someone when we say “take this toy to.”  It seems like such a small thing, but it’s pretty amazing how much she understands.  She’s constantly learning new things.  It now frequently takes only one explanation and she has something figured out.  For example, I showed her once how to open someone’s cell phone the other day, and she promptly did it herself.  Another thing to add to her list of accomplishments. ;)  

Now about “accomplishments” from the past year.  These are all milestones that I want to remember: napped in her crib for the first time at 4 months, first tooth at 4.5 months (8 teeth at 1 year, and cutting another one now), first solids (rice cereal) at 5 months, rolling around to get places around 6 months, pulling self up at 6.5 months, crawling around 7 months, first steps at 8.5 months, and  walking before 11 months.  Hopefully, I can add sleeping through the night to this list soon.  I can’t seem to remember right now when she said her first word.  I remember that it was “Ma” though.  (For awhile that’s what she said when she wanted something from me.  I’d wake up in the middle of the night to crying and Ma.  That’s when I knew mamma would be doing the nighttime parenting for some time.)  

So anyway, our girl is one now.  She’s a 30” long, 24 pound bundle of activity, and we’re loving every bit.

The birthday girl

Likes steak… a lot.

But is still willing to share.

Is apprehensive about singing birthday candles.

And likes her new telephone toy.

Walking before 11 months!

Yep, our girl walks, talks, and climbs trees!  See needs a little help with that last one, but she’s moving right along with the others.  She says “Ma”, “bye”, “hi”, and “hey” quite frequently.  ”Ba” and “pa” are favorite sounds right now.  For walking, she went from a few little steps once each day to walking all day long.  Her preferred method of locomotion was crawling on Sunday and walking by Friday.  In between, she visited her grandparents and I’m sure her grandfather’s cat training methods helped.  The toy walker and Abigail’s amazing determination may have helped too.

Ten months old

…and her parents think she’s an amazing, funny girl. She’s lately taken to yelling “HEY!” at passers-by and neighbors up to 200 feet away. She likes making new friends.

She’s a great crawler, and regularly outruns her papa. Her walking is coming right along, with a record six unassisted steps.

Yum! What a good eater!

We say that over and over again.  It used to be that we were offering praise in hopes that she’d take one more bite of rice cereal or stage one baby food, but now it’s a true declaration after she enthusiastically accepts her next bite of big people food.  Abigail loves flavorful food.  Forget about baby food.  She wants the good stuff.  As of today, her favorites include: bananas, guacamole, the meat sauce from spaghetti and meatballs, and chicken makhani.  Yes, our girl loves Indian food!

December? Already?!?

Well, it certainly has been a while since we last posted. Abigail continues to amaze us. She’s almost seven months old and 20lbs now.Her new hobbies include rolling, convincing her parents she’s about to crawl, demanding some of whatever we’re eating, unwrapping presents, and squealing whenever she’s happy.

Abigail’s first Christmas was great. We’re lucky to have such good family and friends.

It’s been a while since we posted Abigail pictures. It’s amazing how quickly she’s changing.

Vacationed

Venus, Abigail, and I had a great summer vacation last month. We visited family in Savannah,  took trips to both Hilton Head and Tybee Island, and spent three nights in Asheville. Here are some photos. Be sure to enjoy Abigail’s new hat!