Abby Update

Abby is soon to be 18-months-old in only four days. Kevin and I are constantly amazed at the new things Abby learns and does every day. This is such a fun age. Abby is fully a toddler and has left the baby stages far behind. I thought I would share some of the things Abby is doing right now...mostly just so I can get them recorded so we don't forget later on!

Colors. Abby's favorite color is definitely pink, with blue being a close runner-up. She loves to point out all things pink (her shirt, a cup, a flower, my phone, etc) and blue (her favorite jacket - which she simply calls, "blue," - her favorite fork, a towel, etc). Next is the color red, which she nearly always gets right. Other colors she knows are green, purple, orange and yellow, but she messes up on those ones or is unsure some of the time. It's fun to ask what colors different items are and watch her get better and better at getting them right.

Her name. Abby finally says her own name! We had been a bit perturbed that Abby continued to call herself "baby" when she could say several other people's names. Just within the last week, she finally switched over to calling herself Abby (although it comes out more like "Abby" with a "B" in front of it - "Babby").

No. Unfortunately, she still very rarely says yes. "No" means "yes" and "no," depending on the situation which can make things difficult at times (i.e. "Abby would you like some cheese?" "No." I put some on her tray anyway and she gobbles it up - obviously, the correct answer should have been "yes"!). And although she does have her temper tantrums at times, usually the way she says no (even when she's disobeying) is in a very cute, sing-songy way ("no, no, nooo") - it really sounds quite adorable and makes disciplining her that much more difficult for her mommy and daddy. =)

Horse. Uncle Gene and Aunt Melissa bought Abby a rocking horse when she was born. Not being a climber, it took her quite some time to be able to use it herself but she has finally got to the point where she can get on and off all by herself (albeit still with a little difficulty!).

Pictures. We have a computer in our kitchen that randomly shows a slide show of all our pictures for its screen saver. Abby loves to sit and watch the slide show while she is eating in her high chair. With nearly every picture, she names the people in it and it has really helped her get to know all the family better. She regularly names herself, Daddy, Momma, Bubba, both sets of Grandparents, both Great-Grandmas, cousins Stephen (whom she calls "Ste-see"), Hannah and Ted, uncles Gene and Paul, and aunts Bec, Deb and Doris. She also likes to say what people are doing (i.e. "Bubba sleepin'," "Abby bath," "Dadda sittin'," etc) and recognizes various scenes (i.e. flowers, the beach, etc). When the picture of Kevin's Grandma's house comes up, Abby says, "Bubbas!" even though the picture does not show any cats (remember the blog about visiting all of Grandma Ethel's cats earlier this month? Abby sure didn't forget!).

Vocabulary. Abby has a huge vocabulary now. There's no way we could even list all the words she knows now - I'm sure its several hundred. We're constantly astounded at the words she says that we haven't even taught her. She's much more talkative now and even makes up her own gibberish words too. She has such a beautiful, girly voice and there are several words we love to hear her say just because they sound so cute - like cereal, tuna, two, meat and mail. She is also beginning to understand plurals and yet doesn't always get them right (we were going through the mail on the table and she pointed at all the letters, saying, "mails, mails").

Thank you. Over the last few days, Abby has begun to tell me thank you all on her own! It's so sweet! And she always puts my name with it ("Thank you, Mamma."). I'm loving it! =)

Dadda's boat. Kevin has one more week left before fishing season begins, so he's been putting in lots and lots of hours working on his boat in our backyard. Abby loves to look out the back window toward the boat and says, "Dadda's boat, Dadda's boat!" over and over. And when she hears any of the power tools start up, she says, "Dadda workin'." So sweet! I'm not looking forward to next week, when both Daddy and the boat leave. How am I going to get Abby to understand? =(

Scared. I didn't expect this to crop up so soon, but somewhere she learned the word "scared" and really understands what it means. Multiple times a day, she gets scared and races over to me for a hug, saying, "scared, scared" and sometimes, "Abby scared." Since the weather has been nice lately, we've had the front windows open and often what scares her is an unfamiliar sound coming from outside (i.e. a kid walking by bouncing a basketball, an exceptionally loud truck driving by, etc).

Mail. Abby can identify the United States Postal Service logo. I don't know whether she picked it up from the logo on the side of the mail truck or the priority boxes that we pack the outgoing tuna cans in or what, but anywhere she spots the logo, she points and says, "Mail, mail!" Yesterday, we walked through a neighborhood that has the big gray box with about 20 mail "boxes" in them and right on the side is the USPS logo. Abby spotted it right away and said "mail," obviously not recognizing that it was a mail box (since it looks nothing like ours and most other residential mail boxes) but instead recognizing the logo.

Mirror. Sometimes when I put a hair barrett in or make pig tails with Abby's hair, she asks, "Mirror, mirror," and wants me to pick her up so she can see what her hair looks like. Like I've said before - she's all girl! =)

Alphabet Book. Abby has an alphabet book that her Grandma Marks bought her. Each page has a letter of the alphabet and several picturs of items that start with that letter. The last couple pages show all the letters together with no pictures. Abby loves this book and we read many times every day. She can now identify every object on each page and can even recognize several of the letters themselves. For instance, we've taught her that the letter "M" is for "Mamma" and "D" is for "Dadda." She loves to find the letters and say whose name they stand for. And now she even recognizes the letters as they come up throughout the book and completely on her own will say the correct name (we've also taught her "A" is for Abby, "G" is for Grandpa/Grandma, "B" is for Bubba, and "S" is for Stephen). I guess it's already time to get some flash cards! This girl might be an early reader like her Mommy was! =)

Standing on her head. Abby likes to stand on her head (as we call it). I think the picture says it all. =)

Calvin. Calvin and Abby's relationship has definitely changed over the last few months. She absolutely adores him and even plays her own sort of game of tag (if you will) with him...although he does not actually play back. She squeals with glee as she runs around one side of the table and when he turns to look at her, she runs back around and when he sometimes happens to walk toward her, she pretends that he's chasing her. It's pretty cute really. =) As far as Calvin's side of the relationship goes, he has become much more comfortable around Abby and puts up with much more than he used to (backwards petting, even occasionally poking and Abby pushing against him with her feet). Although I am happy to see him adjusting to having Abby around and lets her be in close proximity to him now, the downside is that she doesn't understand how much is too far and fails to recognize the warning signs before it is too late (so far only one scratch - he's pretty good about keeping his claws retracted when he bats at her, but it still scares her pretty badly!).

Lotion. Abby often plays with her toys on the floor of the bathroom while I take a shower, with occasional breaks to poke at me through the shower curtain (I poke back and she gets a big kick out of it!). When I'm done, I always put lotion on my arms and legs since my skin is so dry. Abby has noticed this routine and lifts up her pant legs so that I will put some lotion on her legs too!

Okay, that's all I can think of for now! If you actually read through the whole thing, I'm amazed! It's probably pretty boring for others, but I'm glad I got it all down so that we don't forget what Abby was like as an 18-month-old!