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: