abby antics

I know I've said it a lot lately, but I feel more and more like a mom to a toddler than a baby. I think the biggest contributor to this fact is how much Abby's personality is emerging. She's started doing several things lately that I wanted to remember.

First, she's definitely at the age where she likes to put things in other things. I gave her some crayons the other day and she colored for a few mins but then spent about 20 mins (which is a freakishly long time) putting the crayons back in the box, dumping them out, and repeating. Its fun to watch because you can watch her learning and concentrating so hard.

Here she is dumping them out again - but I also wanted to note that she's wearing my work ID. This is something she does every day when I come home. I pick her up, get a kiss, and she takes of my ID. Yesterday, she was wearing it while walking around carrying my car keys and chatting on a pretend phone. Hilarious.

After Abby got tired of putting the crayons back in the box, she decided to find something else she could put them in. I noticed it had gotten quiet, and when I went to check on her, I caught her red handed throwing her crayons, one by one, in the trash.

Other things we've rescued from the trash this week include all of our drink mixes, a bag of marshmallows, several toys, one of my shoes, Abby's shoes, and the tv remote. I think it may time to find another lid.

I also caught her this morning about to drop a necklace that she plays with into the toilet. Luckily, she hasn't figured out that she can lift the toilet lid (yet), so as long as I can remember to keep it closed, we should be safe for now.

Abby is also quite impressed with magnets. I've been meaning to get her some toddler letter magnets for a long time, but never get around to it. So, she's had to settle for playing with Obama and some other magnets we've got. It's another good time waster though. The hook magnet in the picture is where she hangs her heart bracelets now.

And there are times that she just baffles me. The other day, I gave her a small bowl of kix to snack on while she played. It didn't take long before I heard, "uh-oh!" and this is what I found:

Ok, no big deal. So I go to get a broom, and stop to check my email on the way. When I get back (about 2 mins later) Abby is in another room playing and this is what I find:

I looked for the kix, the bowl, the lid...I looked everywhere. I finally had to concede that she must have stuffed her little chipmunk cheeks full of cereal and then hid the bowl. I later found the bowl and lid - in the trash.

Another new thing - climbing. She now uses the beanbag chair to climb on the couch. She thinks she's pretty much untouchable up there. Yesterday, she fell off, into her toybox. She just stayed very still while I made sure her neck wasn't broken or anything, and then shot up, and walked off to climb up on the couch again. Fearless.
She's really walking pretty well now. I'd say that she walks 60-70% of the time now. She's gotten a lot better about changing direction and turning around. She still falls down a lot, but you can tell, she prefers walking to crawling anytime. Maybe this will allow those crawling bruises on her shin and knees to heal.

She's been making this whirring sound a lot. I can't describe it exactly. But yesterday, I said "Abby, try this." And I proceeded to add a vowel and say "Wow!" She picked it up right away and now has been saying "wow!" and "woah!" back and forth all the time. It makes me laugh.

Here's a really short video of Abby walking. She doesn't walk that far in this one, but you get the idea. It also shows her practicing her new "wow/woah" phrases.