Better than a walker

Abigail found a new toy over the weekend, and it didn't even cost us any money.  She figured out that she can move around by supporting herself on the laundry hamper and was quite pleased with herself.

After making several circles in our room, she figured out how to move in a forward direction in the dining room:

Sometimes it feels like she is getting more mobile by the hour!

Uh oh!

One day last week was an apparently rough one for Abigail at daycare.  She only took one nap, didn't like one of her solid meals, and didn't finish either of her bottles. While the nap is not unheard of, not liking her food is very uncommon.

On top of that, however, were the reports we found waiting for us:

I thought it was too early to get bite reports!  JP picked her up and said the teachers were matter-of-fact about it. When I went in the next morning, they said that she just seemed to be exploring and not to worry.  Luckily we are now going on a week of bite-free days at daycare.

To balance out the trouble, here is a cute picture of Abigail in a diaper and t-shirt only, showing off how she can cruise on the wall without a ledge to hold on to:

Who needs to crawl...

...when you can take steps?


This was on Tuesday night:

Abigail is getting braver and braver and we tried on a whim putting her in a standing position and letting go on Tuesday night.  I have been doing this for a while and Abigail usually stands on her own for a little while and then reaches out to grab me.  But, on this night, Abigail saw JP and took a few toddling steps over to him!  She repeated it several times and we were able to catch this little video.  We are so proud of her and can't believe it!

New game

As she gets bigger, we have been having fun with Abigail learning to 'share' by playing the game of asking for something, having her hand it over and then give it back.  We spend a lot of time praising her efforts and she always gets her toy or item back. She has begun to do this at meals too, as she has started to offer us a bite of her food.

Here she is 'sharing' her hairbrush with me over the weekend while in her jumper:

Also from the same day, how cute is she in these little jeans?

They are hand-me-downs from Abigail's big cousins and they are really soft and flexible. We are trying to do more pants to protect her little knees from turning too red while she crawls, and these have been great!

Playing with the mirror baby

Now that Abigail must be vertical at all times, her play with her reflection, or the mirror baby, has changed. She has gotten brave enough to stand up just bracing herself on the mirror without holding on to anything else. She can entertain herself here for a few minutes before she gets down and crawls over to find something else to explore.

Here are a few cute photos of her hanging out with the mirror baby:

Cute little moments

Abigail is so much fun lately but is mostly figuring out and refining things she has already learned, like becoming a faster crawler and more accomplished self-feeder, which don't necessarily warrant new blog posts. 

In that spirit, here are a few more little moments that we have enjoyed lately.

Now that Abigail has become a better crawler, she has figured out that she can wake up, and get herself off the floor bed, and pull open the door that we used to leave cracked.  I was shocked one day last week when I heard her make a few noises after her nap, went to get her, and found this:

She had opened the door herself and was headed out into the hallway.  Since then, JP finished sanding down her door so we can latch it shut at night for safety. We still leave it open a crack for naps and have found her in the hallway a few times since then.  She is so proud of herself!

The other day when I was putting together my lunch before Abigail and I left for work/daycare, I grabbed a peach and washed it in the sink. I was holding Abigail at the time and somehow I was holding the peach up near her face while I got a paper towel. The next thing I knew, Abigail had lunged for the peach and took a big bite.  So, instead of eating the peach for lunch, we shared it in the morning:

Most recently, Abigail has figured out how to move more things around, including the tray of her highchair. There is a detachable white part of the tray that goes in the dishwasher over the larger blue part. Well, one day we turned around and poof!-Abigail had gotten the white part off on her own and was very proud of herself.

Cousin time

On Labor Day, we were lucky enough to have a visit from Abigail's little cousin Laura and her parents on their way back to Phoenix from New Mexico.

Laura is a lot bigger than she was when we saw her in July, but she makes Abigail look huge in comparison.

Abigail continues to be more interested in Laura than Laura is in her, although Abigail seemed interested in trying to grab her and pull up to standing, since that is one of her favorite things to do.  She did like to touch her too.  Here are a few more decent shots of them:

Even though the seven month age gap seems huge now, we hope that Abigail will have lots of fun with her cousin as they both get bigger!

Speedy Crawler

So, in the last week or so, Abigail has gone from a hesitant rocking back and forth on her knees...

to a speedy crawling machine...

Here is video proof:

Sabino Canyon

Now that it is getting a little cooler in the morning and Abigail just keeps waking up earlier, we have been able to take slightly longer walks and be more adventurous.  Some of these recent weekends we have taken Abigail on a few walks to Sabino Canyon, an awesome area a little bit east of our house.  There are great hiking trails but until Abigail is a little bit older we have been sticking to the paved path through the middle of the canyon. 

Here is the view from the road:

 

Abigail is sitting pretty in her stroller:

Abigail and mom:

Once we walked about two miles down the trail, we stopped and snacked on some fruit at a picnic table, which Abigail enjoyed:

Abigail told us some stories:

And then decided she was done eating and it was time to stand up and be vertical!

Then we made our way back to the car and Abigail fell asleep for most of the return trip. (A little hard to see through the window of the stroller canopy, but that's our little girl, out cold!)

Since I take pictures of signs, here is a funny one reminding the many bikers what could befall them if they don't follow the rules:

We have enjoyed our walks as the weather is starting to cool and we will enjoy them even more in a month or two when the sun is even more manageable. 

Abigail: 9 months old

 Nicknames:  I still call her Sunshine a lot and according to JP I am also using Abigaily a lot too, Munchkin is falling out of favor. JP is still sticking with Sweet Pea.  Grandma was here this month and called her Abalone a lot.

Temperament: more opinionated all the time, protesting more when things do not go her way, but overall happy and very curious, continuing to be very watchful and observant, happy and chatty most of the time

Item/Toy We Love The Most: the new high chair, the stroller, books,the rubber ducky song

Item/Toy You Love The Most:   again this month, anything that will help you stand up! this can be the couches, the coffee table, the dining room chairs, the bookcase, the wall, the footstool in your room, etc., and anything that you can knock off the coffee table or other surfaces, magazines you can pull off the coffee table and destroy, the rubber ducky song

Things We're Loving Most Right Now: watching you become a mobile baby who is ready to explore, trying out new table foods with you, laughing with you, watching you communicate more with us by shaking your head, reading books and singing songs

 Things You’re Loving Most Right Now: standing up and cruising and pulling up on everything possible, eating food and cheerios, picking up little tiny things off the floor, nursing in short bursts

Eating:  Abigail's eating repertoire has expanded so much this month!  She moved up to eating three meals a day, two meals at school plus an evening meal with us, so her calories picked up.  As she has gotten better at picking things up, we have begun giving her more of our food and more things she can grab herself.  She is very interested in eating whatever we are eating, which has included fruit and veggies as well as more complicated foods. She happily ate several bites of stuffed shells that we made the other day off of JP's plate.  She is still nursing five-six times a day but the feedings are getting shorter and shorter. 

Sleeping:  We went through a string of three nights in a row when Abigail slept through the night without waking up to eat, including a stretch from 7:15-6:15 without a peep from her!  Then things went backward a little but it is good to know she has it in her.  She often wakes up once to eat and then will sometimes wake up 1-3 more times randomly.  She is predictably unpredictable!  Naps are about the same and she almost never naps more than 30 minutes at daycare, but seems happy about the whole thing.  

Playing: Abigail is now on the move!  That has meant that most of her play consists of exploring and figuring out how to use her continually improving mobility skills.  She continues to love to walk holding on to our hands, and throughout the month became more adventurous on cruising and transferring from couch to coffee table to bookcase etc.  She continues to scoot on her belly more than crawl, although crawling seems to be coming.  Walking is still preferable, of course.  She is interested in exploring her toys briefly before dropping them to pick up or to move on to the next thing, and she likes to read books when she is willing to sit still long enough to pay attention.  

Growth:  We go to the doctor on the 12th so we will update after that. Abigail looks like such a long baby to me and it seems like she is losing a little bit of the rolls on her legs as she moves around more. She is wearing 9 and 12 month sizes and still on the medium rise of her diapers, and in size 3 disposables at night.  

Abigail got another two new teeth this month, bringing the total to six, four on top and two on bottom, even though I don't have any good pictures of the top teeth.  

The other big thing that happened this month was that Abigail got sick for the first time. The last week of the month she was sent home from school with a fever and continued to have the fever for the next two days, with inconsistent relief from tylenol. Thankfully, my mom happened to be visiting that week so she spent a lot of time cuddling with Abigail and holding her for her naps. We took her to the doctor after two days of the fever and they said she just had a viral respiratory infection and to keep doing what we were doing.  Luckily, the fever broke that afternoon and Abigail began to rally and stayed on the comeback trail.  It was so sad to see her clingy and fussy and unhappy, although she did like to be held.  We also had one of the worst nights of sleep in a long time while she was sick, as I basically slept in the glider holding her on and off for most of one night because she woke up as soon as I tried to lay her down.  

Abigail is chatty when she wants to be and often tells herself stories in the car on the way to and from daycare.  It seems like her receptive language is really developing, as she seems to understand some of what we say to her. For example, when my mom was here I ate a piece of fruit off her tray and asked, "where did it go?"  She looked at both of us for a few seconds and then looked over the side of her chair, where most of the food she drops ends up.  This happened more than once so it does seem like she knows what we are asking. We are also working on "where's daddy?" and "where's mommy?" and she is starting to get the idea.  

The other really fun thing is that Abigail's sense of humor is starting to come out, and it is so interesting to see how she seems to understand when things are incongruous and how that is something to be laughed at.  For example, she laughs when we put books or tin plates on our heads, or when she gives us her pacifier and we pretend to suck on it.  Who knows how she figured out how things should be, and how funny it is when they do not go that way?

She is so much fun right now, which we comment on to her and each other all the time!

A comparison: