Highlights of Month 12

Abigail continues to develop in leaps and bounds and surprise us with what she knows and picks up on. She is walking all the time now, having learned that it is so much faster than crawling and it allows her to grab at stuff higher up! We have had to become careful about showing her how stuff works! She watches our every move and is so curious and tries to repeat what we do. While sometimes this is really fun (she waves bye bye consistently, sometimes now even when we just say the word without the gesture), but other times it is not so fun like when she figured out how to open the lid on the garbage can and then wanted to explore what was inside! Luckily, in addition to a clever baby, I have a cleaver husband who just turned it around so the lid opens from the back where she can't reach! We learned that we have to be careful when we show her how things work because she is usually able to do it!

Helping organize the kitchen

Helping with laundry 

Claude and I were putting away laundry in the bedroom and all of a sudden looked at each other and realized it was too quiet out there. Sure enough, we came out and little Miss Abigail had gotten the Cheerios down off the shelf, pulled the bag out of the box, and dumped the whole thing on the floor! She was mighty pleased with herself!

She makes all sorts of fun noises now, like buzzing her lips and running her finger over her lips while humming. She has also discovered and is very interesting in her belly button!

As I mentioned about waving bye bye, she has really developed some strong word recognition. She knows the meaning of hot, bye bye, "where is ..." (She puts her hands palms up and looks around!), all done, and of course her name. And for the most part, she responds whether we say these words to her in French or English. Hooray! She also knows exactly what uh-oh means and makes the sounds very clearly. To the point where we were in the grocery store and someone knocked a package of something on the floor and she looked over and said uh-oh! The woman in line behind us and the cashier both smiled :).

She is also much more aware of her world. She tunes into other kids or babies crying and is concerned about them. She hears airplanes in the sky and points to the sky or the window. Claude talks on the phone using headphones a lot and she now puts headphones up to her ear (instead of in her mouth - hooray!), and she puts telephones, or anything rectangular, really (dominoes, blocks, etc.) up to her ear.

She is also developing quite the memory! Gone are the days when you can take something from her, hide it behind your back, and she instantaneously forgets it exists! For example, when we were in Hawaii, Uncle Matt taught her this game where he holds up his index finger, and when she meets it with hers, he acts like she gave him a jolt of electricity. She then laughs with delight! Well, when we Skyped with Uncle Matt on her birthday (more than a month after she had last seen him!), guess what she did as soon as she saw him? Put that little index finger up to the phone!

She has also discovered the joy of pulling tissues out of the box or unrolling a roll of paper towel or these plastic bags that we use for dirty diapers. One morning, she discovered a box of Kleenex on the nightstand while I was getting dressed. I quickly grabbed it and put it in the middle of the bed on the pillow out of reach. Next thing I know, she is standing next to the bed pulling on the pillowcase until the box of Kleenex is close enough for her to grab! At that point, given the ingenuity require for that solution, I couldn't bring myself to take it away again and just settled for stuffing all the Kleenex back in the box when she was done!

Abigail hates the vacuum. It is terrifying to her for some reason. In an effort to help her get over her fear, Claude brought her over to the vacuum in the closet and had her touch it. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect and she has refused to go anywhere near that closet for at least 2 weeks now!

Her other big new skill this month is climbing. She especially loves climbing up on top of the coffee table in the living room!

Food wise, she eats pretty much everything we eat. This month, she has been loving chicken and strawberries. And sausage! Her daycare teachers told us one day that they were feeding the kids breakfast, and in the time it took them to turn around and get something for someone, Abigail had stolen the sausage off the tray of the poor kid next to her. From now on, they just give her 2 sausages!

One other thing that is pretty fun is her nursing personality. Really, it's just her overall personality coming through while nursing, but either way, she is very clear about what she wants or doesn't want! When nursing her, if I try to take her off before she's done, she will bat at my hand, or even better, grab it and push it away and hold it away in case I dare try to do it again! 

Month 12 also brought Easter, see this post for that fun, as well as her 1st birthday party, featured here!

Some other fun pictures from this month:

Out for a walk along the Mississippi

Our little spelunker/adventurer

I'm so grateful she brings us books to read to her now instead of just chewing on them!

Copying daddy - he is actually asleep on the floor!

She loves this light!

Monthly Photos - Month 12 - Last One!

And here is the last of the monthly sticker photos - Month 12!

Highlights of Month 11

Month 11 for Abigail was a blast. She continues to make us smile and laugh and marvel at her ingenuity and cleverness. I am hopelessly behind on the blog, so this one will have less commentary in hopes of catching back up!

A few things Abigail learned how to do this month: blowing kisses, blowing raspberries with her tongue, pointing at things, feeding herself yogurt with a spoon and actually getting some in her mouth, signing all done,  and standing on her tip toes.

The big deal for Month 11 was our trip to Hawaii. We left MN on February 28 for the long-dreaded 4+6 hour flights (we had a stopover in LA) with an 11-month-old! Abigail did really well. Not to say that it wasn't completely and utterly exhausting (especially the flight back which leaves at 9pm and arrives in LA at 5am - she slept almost the entire time but I was holding her and trying to keep her asleep, so I didn't sleep at all!), but she really did do well. She was pretty content, except when we absolutely had to be sitting down, in which case Cheerios usually did the trick. It was tricky though, since her attention span is about 3 minutes maximum! Abigail started full-on walking (she had taken her first steps earlier in the month) in the LAX airport, which is fine by me! I would much rather have her walking than crawling around the airport!

Glad to be there!

And grateful for all of Grandma's hard work and thoughtfulness about getting everything ready to make us comfortable!

Abigail loves brushing her teeth with Daddy

First morning - sunrise

We had a fantastic time with my family in Hawaii. Abigail loved spending time with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunties Mari, Michelle, and Vicky and Uncle Matt. She was the star of the town! We ran some errands with Grandma so that everyone could see little Miss Abigail that they have heard so much about (because Grandma previously wore the crown of star of the town!). 

Abigail was exposed to many new sensory experiences in Hawaii! With the ground in Minnesota still covered in snow, and her being a tiny babe last summer, this was the first time she experienced grass, stones, sand, and a whole host of other things - all of which, her immediate reaction was to try to taste! In the beginning, she hated the grass. We knew she hated it when she tried to chase the kitty (whom she loved) but stopped when the cat moved out onto the grass. Unfortunately for Abigail, Lassie (the cat) quickly realized her safety zone, so Abigail spent a lot of time pointing to the cat in the distance!

"Grandma, can you make that cat come back here where I don't have to touch the grass?"

It was actually quite the party trick the first few days showing Abigail's aversion to grass. We would walk her to the edge of the stone patio, her toes would brush up against the grass, and she would immediately back up. When you would try to hold her hands and walk her towards the grass and she would sit back on her haunches and put all her weight (about 18 pounds!) into staying away from the grass! She eventually came around, but the other funny thing she did in the beginning was that when you would put her on the grass, she would lift up one foot like a flamingo so less of her skin was exposed to that crazy stuff!

Another funny anecdote from the trip was our times at the beach. Each time, Abigail would get sleepy-eyed and often napped. It was pretty funny when I realized that the tune we use on her white noise machine is the ocean waves track. I guess we know our sleep cue is working!

We also threw a practice birthday party for her, since everyone was there. It was very fun, even though she wasn't too sure about the cake at first!

Dancing to Grandma playing Happy Birthday on the ukelele!

It was clear that Abigail is such an outdoor baby - she would stand by the door and point until someone took her out! She had lots of nice walks in the carrier to nap and lots of snuggles with everyone.

Loving those snuggles with Grandma!

She loved the tour of the gardens with Grandpa and was appropriately appreciative of his hard work!

Grandpa blowing kisses to us inside

Abigail blowing kisses

Just chillin' like a big girl!

Clapping with Grandpa

Looking good in her new Hawaiian dress from Grandma

Checking out her shadow

Having a blast "watch" Grandma at hula

Poor little girl had to leave Hawaii and lots of doting aunts, uncle, and grandparents to be back in the "real world"! :) We came home and she started fussing and throwing herself to the ground in child's pose with giant crocodile tears when she wanted to be held but we were in the middle of something and couldn't pick her up!