i am going to sound cheesy i know, but abby is such a joy lately to be around! maybe they are extra cute before the terrible two's set in.  hmmm.

 we had a good christmas.  abby got lots of nice stuff.  she got a dora kitchen from my dad & caren, a doll bed/bassinet & stroller from deanna (with a cabbage patch doll), some clothes from wayne & maria, clothes from nicole, and little people sets from us.   we have two little people sets that we haven't even opened up, in fact.  we opened the little people princess castle and howie set it up for her & the little fridge/stove toy. she likes both a lot! she is less interested in the keyboard toy i got at costco however.  oh well.

abby is very funny these days and has the sweetest personality.  she loves to come up to us and rub her face on our legs or headbutt us.  she also tries to headbutt the cats but they are definitely less interested, ha.  romeo is getting more tolerant of abby.  sasha still runs from her.

sasha was sitting on the edge of the crib  the other night while i was changing abby & abby said very clearly "sasha" so that was cool!

abby can now meow like a cat, and bark like a dog.

 progress! LOL

she says thank you when she gives us something. it is SO cute how she says it.

she refuses to let us feed her.  yogurt is a mess :(    i actually got her some gogurt tonight so we'll see if that works out a little better. she also likes danimals (the little yogurt drinks) and kefir! LOL

she is just a lot of fun.  she gets excited when we come to get her from maria's & she gets so happy when howie comes home from work.

i don't think her food preferences have changed too much.  she loves butter cookies and i gave her french fries tonight and she liked that!

still hates having her teeth brushed :(

we had her 18 month appointment before christmas....she is about 21 lbs and 30 1/2 inches tall, so not too much bigger than 15 month appt.  she had a fever for 5 days before her 18 month appt so i am thinking she may have lost some weight since she wasn't eating much when she was sick.

abby is such a character these days.  

we put up our christmas tree and she was thrilled the first time we turned the lights on! she was not expecting it to light up, so she clapped and stamped her feet. LOL.  it was so cute.

she does like the tree, she likes to take ornaments off it and shake the branches & she enjoys pulling the plug out of the wall. :/  she also likes to go behind the tree esp if the cats are back there.

so because the tree is up, we had to take down the playpen.  i have it in her room if i need it. we were going to end up taking it down soon anyway, but i felt more secure knowing i had a safe place to put her if i needed to leave the room for more than a minute. for example, doing laundry, taking a shower. so i guess we can set it up in the living room temporarily if needed.  

she was trying to climb INTO the playpen the other day, i guess she saw a toy in there that she wanted.  she about gave me a heart attack b/c she was hanging off the edge of it!!! crazy kid.

and yesterday she was sitting inside the hamper with her toys. she had her picnic basket with her little people, a bucket, and the tree skirt, LMAO.  btw, the tree skirt is not on the tree b/c abby keeps pulling it off. 

also, she pretends to put on lotion.  she "pushes" the pump or the top of the cap and then rubs her hands together. so cute!

Abby is so cute now.  Today I was reading to her and I took out a curious George book and she was so excited!! . She actually tried to climb out of the crib to get to the book lol.  She carried it out around Tonight along with her stuffed animal curious George.  So cute.

She now says hi go uh oh yay and ouch.  So she is picking up more words. I'm glad!!  I'm sure she will pick up even more as time goes on. She will talk like she does everything else . all at once!!

She is really developing a personality now. She's so funny. She makes her demon baby sounds. She loves to play with Howie.  She plays with me too but it's different with Howie. She gets so excited for him.  Lol. She plays this game where she crouches down and then pops back up and he yells peek a boo and she gets so crazy!!

I just love her so much and it's such a pleasure to see her growing up and learning new things every day.

with everything else going on, i forgot to mention that abby is officially walking! she was taking a few steps on her own here & there but not consistently (she started that maybe two weeks ago?) but now she is walking all over the place! she does still drop to a crawl sometimes (it's faster) and of course, she loses her balance and falls. but yeah, walking!!

of course, now that she is walking she seems so much bigger to me. it's hard to think of her as a baby when she is walking around the house ;)

she can also now point to her belly button though she is not interested in doing parlor tricks for mommy.....haha. if i ask too much she ignores me!

abby is now officially walking!

she can walk the length of the living & dining room on her own. she can stand up on her own, but she still prefers to pull to a stand now and then start walking.

it's so cute and we make a big deal out of it every time she walks, which she just loves!

so i think she's in between now. she knows how to walk but sometimes still prefers to crawl b/c it's faster and she likes to push her toy, but yeah - she can walk!!

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we had her fifteen month checkup yesterday too.  she is 21 lbs and about 29 inches tall.   she's getting so big!

so in the time i last wrote, we have gotten abby off the bottle. yay!

it's funny how easy it was.  i just figured that she was probably close to being ready to get rid of it, and lo & behold, it was true.   she's been on the cup only for about two weeks now?  i figured i should probably try & get rid of the bottle before we go to the pediatrician again (our appt is tomorrow, ha)

she doesn't seem to miss it at all, so that is much easier than i thought it would be. i guess we just needed to wait until she was ready to give it up!

.
she is not walking yet. she is much closer. she can take a few steps independently but she's not confident enough to go on her own. so maybe in the next few weeks?

she walks with her push toy at maria's house all the time. they go outside and she goes up & down the sidewalk. i've seen her....she is FAST! like a little bull, she's got places to go!!! 

yesterday she was chasing after the mailman b/c she wanted HIS cart. LOL!  she's a funny kid.

oh one more thing.

she does this adorable thing where she snuggles things against her cheek and sucks her thumb and rocks herself.  it's so cute.

she really likes this one teddy bear.  it's really soft - it's the gund teddy bear that says "it's a girl" it was a gift from my sister when i was in the hospital but abby really likes it.  she also has snuffy, who is equally soft but she likes that bear more, much to howie's dismay!

she likes blankets too. esp the muslin swaddling blankets.  she is like linus! she holds it against her face and stands there sucking her thumb (in the crib) or she snuggles up with it to go to sleep. sometimes we put it on her and she snuggles up into it, but i swear half the time when i am putting her to bed, she just wants to lay on top of it with it clutched in her fist.

someone has discovered splashing in the tub!

it's so funny.  she has not been a huge fan of the bath.  more recently, she's been more ok with it since i have some little toys for her. she has a singing duck, a rubber hippo, and a rubber ducky.  i need to get more things for her but i don't want a tub full of toys necessarily, lol. i also got her a bathtub book (it squeaks!) but i keep forgetting to bring it in the bath with us...lol.  she likes to play with it just normally so it's always in the living room or playpen.

so the splashing.  she kicks her legs in front of her, the same way she does normally but the sensation of them under water is different, and she just gets the biggest kick out of it, and then when the water splashes in her face she laughs! which is ironic considering when i rinse her hair if water gets on her face she screams. baby logic!!!

the only thing now is she cries when bathtime is over. she's not a fan of getting out of the tub.  and when i reach in there to get her, she pushes my hands away, lol.

yesterday i put her on the side of the tub standing and she seemed more accepting of that and then i picked her up. she didn't cry as much as usual.

she's not walking yet but she is trying! she  gets up on her legs and is sort of in a pyramid position but she can't get her upper body up.  she is getting braver about letting go of the furniture to get from say, the couch to a toy and she is pretty good at walking along the couch & walking along the table. so i really think it's only going to be a matter of time before she figures it out.

just a few things i want to jot down....

abby laughs so hard at mia mao (on baby tv) now. it's so funny.  she just loves the show! she always liked it, but now she actually laughs at the antics of the two cats who are the "stars" of the show. so cute!


maria says on their walk, they walk by a house that has a windmill, and abby just loves this windmill and reaches out to touch it, and screams when they walk away from it!


i got abby her first pair of shoes yesterday.  i wasn't going to go to stride rite (expensive!) but then i decided to just spend the extra money to make sure she has a good shoe for her foot development & i also needed to make sure she had an accurate measurement b/c i had a suspicion she had a wide foot......and she does! she is a 4 1/2 W currently. 

i was at the outlets in rosemont, so my choices were a bit more limited than in a real store, but i found a pair of t-strap hello kitty shoes that are meant for babies who are not walking yet, but learning to walk, and  the first five months of walking.   i was hoping to get a pair that were more like a gym shoe, but i guess it ultimately won't matter b/c she will probably outgrow this pair by December anyway.  they were $40!! so i will save them and hope that someone else can use them down the line or sell them at some point.

it got cold this morning, cold enough that we actually needed light jackets this morning.

i have a fleece that abby wore a few times last year, but it was so big on her...it fits her pretty well this year.  it's hot pink with black bows.  she really likes it. she smiles at it when she has it on. i don't know if she likes the hot pink or how soft it is? its just funny either way!

i just wanted to check in to say that i find the fact that abby loves her little picture books to be soooo cute.

her first instinct is not to chew on them anymore (progress!) so now i just leave them on the floor & in her playpen and let her look through them. and she really likes to! it's so cute.   

i went to the library and got her a ton more board books to look at, some with pictures of other babies and stuff like that. 

she really likes this book called peek-a-zoo and we almost always use that book when i change her diaper to keep her entertained. 

i just love that she likes books!!! it makes me so happy :)



so what else?

still not walking although she is getting closer each day.  she will now let go of something and attempt to take a step. she falls, but she is trying!

she is still on the bottle....sigh.  i haven't revisited weaning again, but i figure i'll try again in a month or so, maybe then she'll be more ready. in the meantime, she will now drink from a cup again, so we have that going for us at least.

without fail, a month always seems to pass between posts!!

so let's see, probably the biggest news right now is trying to get her off the bottle.  we have taken away the bottle during the day and i'm still giving her a bottle at night before bed.  she's doing pretty good with the cup.  she readily drinks from it.  she of course, would prefer her bottle....

her face literally lights up when she sees the bottle at night, she looks so happy!!  she grabs it with both hands and sucks it down. it almost makes me feel like i am taking away the bottle too soon, but i know it's for the best. i don't want her to get too attached to it (more than she is already, lol)  

she's getting so big!  she doesn't even use the baby tub anymore when she gets a bath. i just put her in the regular bath tub and fill it with a few inches of water and then wash and rinse her with the bathwater.  she likes it a little better now that there's no running water & she has some plastic toys that i bring in there and they float in the water, she likes that.

she's doing good otherwise.  she is self feeding a lot more, which she just loves.  she still eats baby food (fruits, veggies) but in addition to her 'people' food.   she is eating all sorts of things but favorites include: olio, watermelon, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, grilled cheese, and french toast.  she did not like quesadillas very much, even though she loves chihuahua cheese shreds

abby's one year appointment was today. it went well.  she's doing just fine - i had some concerns about things she isn't doing (saying mama, pointing) and the doctor said that she's just fine and not to worry about things.  i was also worried b/c she does things like sit and spin on her butt (like in a circle) and she likes to put one hand in front of her when she crawls and skim it on the carpet, and he said that these are all normal things for a baby to do, so i feel better. i am not sure why i was so worried but i guess better to be aware of things & have concern than not. 

he did say that temper tantrums could start as early as 15 months. OH FUN.

also, he recommended to try & get abby off the bottle by sept/oct when ear infection season sets in, i guess bottle fed babies are more susceptible to them. so that gives me a goal to work toward. we'll see how it goes.  i'm not going to stress about it - she's still not totally GETTING how to use the sippy cup, but his suggestion was to give her the cup with water (or milk) on those hot days instead of a bottle and her thirst will outweight her stubborness. he did say that if i'm going to take away one bottle (for example, her lunch bottle) i should probably just take away all the bottles.  so we'll just keep trying the sippy and see how it goes.  stubborn ass baby!!!

she was crazy during the appointment and would not be held. howie was there and i tried to let her go by him while i talked to the doctor and she was just freaking out the whole time b/c she wanted to be down on the floor. we finally just put her on the floor so she could crawl around and the dr was like, well it's no wonder she's not walking b/c she can crawl like lightning. LOL! she is fast, i'll grant you that.

she does walk now if you hold her arms and walk with her but she gets bored of it after a while and wants to crawl.  she'll get it eventually! but in the meantime, she just crawls b/c that's faster!! walking would slow her down. :)

she got three shots which she was NOT pleased about.  she stayed upset for a good long time, too.  she was even crying in the car on the way home  and did not really calm down until we got home.
***


she slept so good today.  she woke up at 6 for her bottle and then she went back til nine. NINE! it was so wonderful! we got home from the appointment and she went down for her nap and woke up around 2, or so.  she stayed up and ate lunch and played for a bit and then wanted another nap at 3 which is unusual for her.  she slept for an hour & i took a nap too!

.

i made her chicken for lunch today.  i had two chicken thighs left so i boiled those for her & added a can of green beans and some pastina. so she had that for lunch  and dinner and i have enough for tomorrow too. i need to get more chicken for her.  for her, i buy chicken that is on the bone, like thighs.   for cooking purposes, i cook almost exclusively with b/c breast, if you were wondering.  i'm sure you weren't. LOL!

she really likes when we make the food with the meat for her and maria said she ate tofu the other day & liked it.  so i'll have to get some tofu next time i'm at the store.  i tried to give her tofu before and she didn't like it but maria said she tossed it in with the chicken broth and she ate it up, so i'll have to do that!! 

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she is so funny.  i was playing with her on the changing table before i changed her diaper.  she had her little baby toothbrush. i was talking to her and she actually stuck her toothbrush in my mouth!! i was so surprised!  so i guess she is figuring out objects and their uses.  the doctor said that she can actually brush her own teeth now. i'm not sure how much brushing she would actually do but i guess we can try it.

officially one year old!

man, this year flew by!

well, abby is officially a year old! such a big girl.  :)

so not much new is going on since i last updated.  she is pretty much completely off formula now, so that's good! we have a little bit left, so we will use it up in her cereal and bottles but once that's gone, we're completely on whole milk. so much cheaper!

we are working on weaning her from the bottle but that is not going as well as i had hoped!  she does drink from a sippy cup but doesn't really understand how to drink from it on her own, she doesn't understand how to tip it up to get the liquid.  and she gets frustrated and then just won't drink.  so i'm still giving her milk in the bottle but i do give her water in the sippy cup.

i talked to the pediatrician's office and they said that it's ok if she is still on the bottle. i got nervous b/c dr graham kept saying she had to be off by twelve months and i just didn't see it happening!! so i think i'll revisit taking the bottle away in a few weeks and see how it goes.   the nurse mentioned being off by 18 months and that is what the AAP website says too, so we'll go with that. hopefully we can get her off the day bottles sooner though. :)

she's not walking yet, still doing her crab walking in the playpen and on furniture. her new thing is to go up to you and crawl up your legs so you can pick her up but she doesn't say UP yet.   she is making a wide variety of sounds so i'm betting that a word is going to come soon.  she says something that sounds really similar to TICKLE and maria insists that she says 'hi ghingis' but i haven't heard that yet. no mama at this time!!! maybe soon.

she got scared when everyone sang happy birthday to her.  she cried, poor baby. i think the clapping was too loud and it frightened her!

she enjoyed her cupcake.  we took the frosting off b/c it was buttercream and it was hard from being in the fridge, and at first she was all dainty but eventually she figured out how to get a hunk off and was shoving it in her mouth. she was up pretty late that night, LOL. 

she even took an afternoon nap the day of the party b/c she was just so tired from being out in the sun and being around so many people!

she got lots of clothes and some new toys, so she will be a highly fashionable baby for the rest of the summer! :)

forgot to mention, we did start abby on whole milk. she is still getting formula (until she's one) but i am mixing 2 oz of milk into her formula now. she is doing pretty good on it so far!

i am trying to make a point to document here more often... i write about abby a lot in my own personal journal but i want to make sure i am specifically updating here too, so more of those memories are in one place.

so we are back to crying in the bath. frustrating!! now her new thing is to stand up in the tub and not want to sit down. she cries and holds on to you and gets all stiff when you try to get her into a sitting position. she is generally ok once you've got her sitting down. she does seem upset (especially when you need to rinse the soap out of her hair) but she'll tolerate it.  maybe one day she'll like bath time!

still a big challenge to change her diaper.  she squrims wriggles and flips over and then tries to crawl away. it's sooo annoying. i was letting watch an animal song video on youtube but that did not hold her interest for very long. she does (strangely) enjoy playing with cardboard tags from clothing, and the lid from the a&d ointment but again, that doesn't always hold her interest. i have tried baby toys and she just flings them off the table. LOL.  sometimes i just resort to holding her down but then she screams and this kid is STRONG. i mean, it's a literal wrestling match to get her diaper changed.

other than that, she's good!

so it seems like i come and update once a month, lol.  i suppose it is a better track record than some.

abby is doing good.  she is still crawling, and pulls to a stand like a pro. she does cruise around in her playpen and crib (she crab walks side to side) but she doesn't really do it on the furniture just yet.  she does try to scoop up toys while standing and usually falls on her butt. 

she is always in a good mood, EXCEPT for when we are changing her diaper. then she is a challenge. trying to change her is like wresting with an octopus. she is ridiculous! she screams, she rolls over, she shrieks, she cries. it's terrible. i hope this stage passes b/c it is really annoying.

she isn't very cuddly anymore but she does have her sweet moments. she is starting to learn how to give kisses & she will occasionally give you a kiss!   she loves to play, and she especially likes if you chase her, and grab her ankles so she can't go anywhere, she laughs a lot when you do that.  

when you come get her in the morning, she will climb up on the crib and then lift her arms up, or else she's just super smiley and so happy to see you! 

she is enjoying her activity table these days, as well as playing with violet (she can make violet play songs and stuff now) and her ring stacker. she likes to get the rings off the spindle and then chew on them, her favorites are the small red ring with the beads inside & the big blue ring.

she adores sasha, and is so excited when she sees sasha.  sasha actually lets abby pet her, as opposed to romeo, who runs away when abby comes after him.  abby likes to rub sasha's ears between her fingers, which sasha seems to enjoy too!

another month snuck by me :)

abby is now crawling! and she is FAST!  she's so funny. she kind of moves like a bulldog. i hope that is not mean to say, haha. that's just what it reminds me of.  and she makes this funny little sound (uh! uh! uh!) as she moves too. 

she likes to chase after ball toys. i just ordered some on amazon, for us to play with in the basement b/c we have so much more room down there.   three is this old nasty soccer ball that the cats used to play with and she is crazy for that thing, lol. so i figured something more appropriate would be a good idea.

she's just funny nowadays.  she is starting to get impatient. like if you don't feed her fast enough she gets cranky, and sometimes she just doesn't want to go in her carseat or high chair and she does this crazy thing where she arches her back so you can't put her down. and changing her clothes or diaper is a challenge these days too, she twists and squirms like a wild animal!

but she's a lot of fun. hard to believe she is 9 1/2 months already.  she's getting so big! she was nearly 19 lbs at her last dr appointment ( a few weeks ago).

we are looking forward to easter on sunday. i am planning to give her some ham & scalloped potatoes!

Um yeah, so I didn't really mean for so much time to pass. I was thinking about this blog yesterday & how it's been a while since I came here and wrote!

Lots has been going on since January.  Abby can sit up on her own now, pretty much unsupervised. She does fall sometimes, but not nearly as often as she once did.  She is not crawling yet, but she does the rocking back and forth thing. She's trying!  She enjoys if you put her into a stand and then let her hold onto the couch or ottoman. She laughs with delight but she does eventually fall over, lol.

Top teeth are working on coming through. I feel like it has been WEEKS now. Please for the love of God let them just come through already. Lots of night wakings this time. We did get the Hyland's teething tablets and they seem to be helping, so we use those when she wakes up at night.

She is starting to enjoy more solids, including cheerios! She's getting so big.  She likes the gerber baby puffs too.  She was not a huge fan of hummus, however.  I need to get her some cottage cheese and tofu that she can eat for a snack.

I gave her a bath in the baby tub without the newborn sling. *sniff* big girl!   She did well, as I figured she would. It was easier to wash her in the sling b/c she was in more of a reclining position but she was starting to get to the point where she wanted to sit up all the time anyway.  She still does not really enjoy bath time too much. I think she is cold!  

Her skin is still stupidly dry. We are working on that.  I use baby oil gel (generously) on her after the bath and then layer with lotion & she gets lotion each night and during the day.  Poor kid.

We got her some new toys recently....a ring stacker thing (where they take the rings on & off, some blocks with a shape sorter lid, an activity table, and some stacking cups. the stacking cups don't seem to interest her too much but I'm hoping she will like them more when she's a little older. So far she really likes the blocks! She enjoys taking them out of the box and then chewing on them.  haha

Though if we can be honest, she enjoys chewing on everything these days!

how quickly a month passes!  i kept thinking i needed to come here & update but time just got away from me.

abby now has her two bottom teeth.  it's so cute to get a peek of them when she smiles or opens her mouth wide.  she does not want to let me open her mouth to look at them, in fact she really hates when you wipe her mouth too!

we go to the dr tomorrow for her checkup so i am looking forward to seeing how big she has gotten.  i am pretty sure she had some crazy growth spurt in the past few days.  the last three nights, she was so tired. she went to sleep at 5:30 after just drinking her bottle.  and she slept the whole night through too!

she seems back on her normal schedule now.  she generally has her bottle around 5:30 and then we usually give her her solid food at the same time as we have our dinner, which is usually about 6:30.  then she goes to bed around 7:15.  

i've been much better about reading to her.  it's kind of a challenge now because she wants to grab the book and put it in her mouth, but for the most part, i think she enjoys listening to me read, even if she can't totally understand the story.  and reading is supposed to help them understand language and patterns in language.  i do hope she loves to read. i would be so sad if she didn't!

anyway.  she is a lot of fun lately.  she is very giggly & happy.  she likes to "talk" which basically just sounds like her saying ba ba ba ba ba ba BA BA BA BA ABAAAAAAAAAAAAA really loud.  she enjoys sitting in the bumbo seat and being on her tummy.   she flips over pretty much right away if you lay her on her back. in fact, i don't really use her baby play gym anymore b/c she flips right into the side of it.   i may set up her other playmat b/c it has a bigger mat part.

she also sleeps on her tummy nearly all the time now.   i lay her on her back but she flips over right away.  sometimes she even sleeps with her knees tucked under her and her butt in the air. cutest thing ever!

hopefully i'll update again before another month passes :)