Abigail: 30 months old

Abigail is now closer to 3 than 2, and closer to 5 than a newborn!

Here are some of the recent things we are enjoying about her:

Eating:  Abigail continues to be a pretty good eater. She can be capricious about her preferences, but that seems typical for a toddler. She still loves fruit, especially berries, and will eat peanut butter and jelly, fruit, and squeezy yogurt (go-gurt) for lunch regularly at school.  After a cereal kick over the winter, we have shifted to eating more oatmeal lately, which is sort of a reverse of what the weather might dictate.  However, it is working for now.  As far as dinners, Abigail has been loving corn on the cob, our freezer dinner rolls, and most chicken dishes. She is unpredictable about soups.  She will go through days where she wants to eat a lot and other days where she is picky as can be, but it seems to even out over the long run.

Sleeping: Abigail is now falling asleep by herself at naps and bedtimes, which is a welcome change from six months ago when I would still sit with her and rub her back until she fell asleep and then creep out of the room. Once JP got back from Guatemala at the end of February, we were able to introduce the idea of "big girl time" where she would lay down by herself for a while before we would check on her. Eventually, we stretched out that time until she regularly fell asleep on her own.

The other great improvement in our sleep routine has been buying a toddler clock that tells Abigail what time she can get up and get out of her bedroom.  We started it around 6:15 and have gradually pushed it back to 6:30.

Naps at school have been more challenging. After a stretch of totally refusing to nap at school (and home) and falling apart around dinner time most nights, the music teacher figured out some secret magic trick to get her to sleep consistently at school. This is great...as long as she is there. When she is out for whatever reason, Abigail rarely naps.  At home she still naps most days, and we just leave her in there until her clock turns green, so we know we have a set time to catch up on things. Sleep is going well at this point!

Playing:
Abigail is so much fun right now!  Her imagination is really developing so her play is more complex and entertaining. She is able to do basic pretend play like imagining we have wipes for the babies, or butter to put on the bread, and goes along with this smoothly.  It is really fun to watch and participate in.  She still loves her baby dolls and taking care of them, as well as her animal sets and to "play books".

Abigail is very interested in families and family composition these days. So, she will find the elephant from one animal set and say, "Oh no, the elephant is so sad. He needs his mommy". She will then go get the bigger elephant from the other set and declare that "He found his mommy. Now he is so happy", and then repeat with the other animals. She can also sort and match her animals with her animal cards.  She also likes to sort them with us into categories (ones that live in the water, ones that roar, etc.)  We have found lots of things to do with the animals, obviously.

Abigail is also singing more songs on her own with some prompting. It is fun to hear the songs she sings at school and add to them with songs we remember from when we were little.  She still loves to sing "Elmo's song" and also a song she made up called "the 40 40 40 song". It goes like this: "40 40 40...40 40 40".

Now that it is hot, Abigail is still enjoying riding on her bike and loves swimming in the pool. We started swim lessons at the beginning of June, which is another post, but they have been wonderful for her and JP has been able to take her a few days after school during the week as well.  She still likes to play hide and seek with us in the house too.  We have also been playing "keep away" with the soccer ball while the World Cup is on so that has been entertaining too.

Growth:
Abigail had her check up the second week of June and did very well. She likes to play with her doctor kit and JP's doctor kit so she was willing to go see her own doctor as well. She was 36 1/2 inches tall (73rd percentile) and 30 pounds (65th percentile).  She is getting so big.

Abigail loves being independent and can dress and undress herself for the most part, put on some of her shoes and her swimsuit. She prefers to climb in to her highchair and her car seat on her own.  She really enjoys being involved in our work around the house and she will now start the dishwasher on her own. We give her the soap packet, she puts it in the holder, closes the dishwasher, and pushes the buttons to turn it on and start it. What a helper!

Abigail recognizes all her letters now, as well as the numbers one to ten.  She counts pretty consistently to ten and can count things in books, but will get confused and is still working on the idea that one thing is equal to one number.  She knows lots of colors and animals and is curious abotu everything.

She is doing well in fine motor skills, drawing us pictures, and is showing some interest in making shapes and letters. She loves to climb and run and play and is so confident on slides and playgrounds now.  When I picture her in my head, I often see her literally running from place to place as it seems to be her preferred mode of transportation these days.

Communication:
Abigail's communication skills are great in my opinion. She is talking a ton, in long and fairly complicated sentences. My understanding is that the milestone for this age is 4-6 word sentences and Abigail routinely says much longer sentences, like "I want you to play animals with me right now!" or "Can I please have your cup after you're done?"  We are pretty firm about the need to say please and she is fairly cooperative but needs reminders at times.  Abigail is also curious about everything and asks "why?" over and over again.  She also says funny little things that make us laugh all the time. Like when she does something silly, and we ask her why, she says, "I just do that sometimes".  Since she moved up to her big girl class, we have also noticed her switch from referring to us as "mama/mommy" and "dada/daddy" to "my mom" and "my dad".  As in, "I want my dad to pick me up today".  She is getting so big!

She also likes to tell us about what she is going to do when she gets bigger. This includes driving the car, wearing shoes with laces, and reading. She also told us that she is going to get a silver car and a green boat. Then she is going to take the boat and go far far far away but not crash on the rocks. Sounds like fun!