16 months

And here we are again, another month has flown by as we watch Abby develop and grow.

We don't have an official ped appointment until 18 months, but I imagine her height and weight are about the same. No big noticeable differences there. As the seasons change and we change her wardrobe, I'm noticing that more and more of the 12 month clothes are becoming too small. She mostly wears size 18 months. She has some 2T shirts and her jeans are still mostly 12 months...but we're transitioning. She's in size 4 diapers, and will be for a while.

Let's see, let's do language first. She seems to learn new words daily. I'm sure I said that last month, but it's true. She's starting to mimic what we say and try to say things. So, even words that she doesn't say regularly, like pretzel, are still words that she has tried to say on occasion. Her receptive vocab continued to amaze me. I love it. I love that I can tell her to go throw something away, to get her shoes, to go get her towel, to sit down, get this toy or that book - and she does - because she totally understands what I'm saying, and that's pretty cool.

Her expressive vocab, like I mentioned, is increasing all the time. The majority of her vocab repertoire is animal sounds. She can do about a dozen sounds. She's also a pro at saying "up" and "down" as well as "thank you" Most of her words still have a baby-speak dialect, but, hey, it's cute. Here are a few of her recent additions:

Banana: ma-nah

Please: peece

baby: ba-ba

car: cah (Kyle thinks this is her boston accent developing)

buckle: buh-buh

Ok, on to motor skills. She's really really into stacking things and nesting things. Putting things into other things is endless fun. We just leave things (like the soup cans) where she can reach them and she helps herself.

She's developed this funny little backwards moon-crawl that she (and we) think is hilarious. I can't really describe it except to say it's like the moon-walk, but on her knees. This has led to her walking backwards more often. Sometimes, she tries to walk backwards all day. She's also decided to try to crawl down stairs a few times....although, she really doesn't get many opportunities to practice that. What else, she's a pro at walking and can go from sitting to standing without issue or help. She can lean over to pick something off the floor with ease. She's getting pretty good with climbing too and will climb on anything that is climbable. She claps, she dances, she sits with her legs crossed. Oh, and she can do most of the motions for the itsy bitsy spider song....I should get it on video.

hangin' with dad at the taekwondo tourney.

Other stuff. She's really into pretending and role playing with her toys. She spends a lot of time tickling, feeding, hugging, kissing, and putting her dolls and animals to bed. She brushes their hair and rocks them to sleep. It's my favorite thing I think. She sometimes tries to sing, which is, again, kinda cute.

At night, she no longer cries when we leave. For a long time, she gave us a few sympathy cries ( I think they were more for our benefit than they were her being upset) Now, however, she says "bye-bye" and asks to be put down in her crib. As I leave the room, she continues to say "bye-bye" and waves to us. Which is nice in that sad kinda way. She still takes 1 nap a day, usually about 2 hours long. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter.

She loves her books more than anything. Her current favorites are brown bear, brown bear (the big non-board book version we have) and The Moon Shines Down, which is another fantastic "real-paged" book (thank's Y!) By the way, if you don't have that book and you have a small child. Go get it, it's great. She's at the stage where we can usually trust her with real pages now. She doesn't try to crease or tear them anymore. She's not always interested in the story of the book, but very much enjoys flipping through the pages and pointing out things she knows. When we read The Cat in the Hat, she points to the fish on every page.

she loves to read in her duck - here she is reading The Moon Shines Down

Food stuff. She likes most things. If it's dairy, she loves it. If it's fruit, she loves it. The child could live off of bananas and milk and cheese. She likes peas, but we still mostly use babyfood pureed veggies to make sure she gets her veggies in - she doesn't like most of them as finger foods. This month, she finally decided that chicken nuggets were yummy. And, gasp, I let her have ketchup. Much to Kyle's dismay....but I did buy the no salt added kind, does that help?

Mostly, Abby makes us laugh all the time. Her noises, the associations she makes, her funny actions and the way she plays. She makes us laugh all day. I still feel pretty lucky to be her mom.

Oh, before I forget. We do have some sad news. The picture below is the last known sighting of Duckie. :( We searched all over the tournament site but couldn't find him...and, I mean, he's bright yellow. I figure some other kid probably stole him away. I'm thinking we may go find a replacement this weekend. We love Duckie.

And on a happier note, here are the missing pictures from yesterday's post about chick-fil-a. Abby's first encounter with a cow. ;)

these make me laugh

I'm sure I've forgotten many things, but that's ok, there's no way I could fit all she does in a single post anyway. Hope everyone has a great week.