Abby is such a smart baby! She started really crawling just before her last “birthday,” and she crawls everywhere now. She loves to stand up by herself, and she does it so easily now too. In the beginning, she’d fall pretty quickly, so she didn’t have to worry about how to get down. A few days later, though, she got so good at standing that there were times that she wanted to sit back down, but the floor seemed so far away to her. She’d eventually just let herself fall, or get frustrated and look to one of us to help her. By Thursday or Friday of last week, though, she’d figured out how to slowly bend her knees to get down. She was constantly practicing by doing numerous squats for days.
Abby also loves to walk while we hold her hands. Sometimes, she gets upset that she has to crawl and would rather be walking. She’s not cruising the furniture in the conventional sense yet, though. She can’t walk the length of a piece of furniture yet, but she can turn and move from one piece to another, the coffee table to the couch, for example. She stands one-handed all the time while she reaches around for something else to grab. It won’t be long that she’ll be cruising the length of it, though, because she gets upset that she can’t do it. Once she’s determined to do something, it doesn’t take her long to figure out how to do it.
Feedings have become much easier too. Abby is such a good eater! So far, she’ll eat anything I give her. Bananas are still a favorite. Prunes too, although we’ve been too scared to give her any for a while. She also loves to feed herself, and she’s gotten really good at it. Most of it actually gets in her mouth now instead of in and around the high chair. I was watching her eat some veggie puffs today, and noticed she’s developed her “pincer grip”—she can pick up small objects with her thumb and index finger. That’s why she’s not such a messy eater anymore. I try to give her some sort of finger food whenever we eat, so that she feels a part of our meal too. Otherwise, she looks at us like a puppy begging for scraps. She’s really good when we go out to eat too. A few weeks ago, we gave her her first french fry, and she loved it. It kept her well entertained while we ate. She also learned how to hold her own bottle this month. Now, I need to start practicing with the sippy cup again.
The last few days she’s finally back to sleeping through the night, usually from 8-5:30am. How I gave birth to a morning person I’ll never know! The fact that the days are getting shorter has started to help sleep a little longer. She’s usually up as soon as it’s light out, though. We’ve had some difficulty with sleep the past few weeks because I weaned her and she was teething. The first few days of weaning, she would get really bad gas at night that would wake her up crying about once a night. The other nights, she’d wake up screaming because of her teeth. Going on vacation didn’t help either. She’d typically wake up a couple times then. There was one night where she was wide awake from 2-4. There wasn’t anything wrong, she just wanted to play. We finally gave in and let her climb between us in the dark until she wore herself out.
She’s also transitioning from 3 naps to longer ones lately. The past few days, she’s also staying awake longer between naps. Instead of going about 2.5 hours between naps, she’s suddenly going about 3.5 hours. Our first day home from our vacation, her morning nap was over 3.5 hours long! The poor thing was so tired because she didn’t nap well in the car the day before.
Abby’s now been fully weaned to formula. I’ve been having a minor health problem but I needed to wean her first before taking medication. It was tough to let go of that part of our lives. I’ve never been particularly attached to the actual nursing part since I mostly bottle-fed her anyway, but I liked knowing that my body was making her food, and she was healthy and growing well because of the nutrition that I was providing her. I weaned her slowly more for my benefit than hers. She took to formula without any problems, except the gas in the beginning. In the end, we came full circle because I ended up nursing her at night while we were on vacation. I pumped for the last time the day before we left. Yesterday, I returned the rented pump, so I am officially done. I must admit that I will definitely not miss pumping!
Abby is such a happy baby! She gets excited easily, and when she does she shrieks in glee. She’s also very animated. This month, she learned to pucker her lips as if giving an exaggerated kiss. She still gives us open-mouthed kisses, though, and sometimes she bites. Those little teeth of hers are sharp! She also learned how to click her tongue on the roof of her mouth, and she does this constantly now. She also developed a new laugh. It comes from the back of her throat and is deep in tone. The best way I can describe it is she sounds like Herman Munster laughing. Oh, she also will “high-five” you if you put your hand out. John started doing this and she immediately “high-fived” him back. While on vacation, we found the best way to keep her entertained was to give her a pamphlet to destroy.
I’m sure I’m forgetting something. So much has happened this month in Abby’s development that it’s difficult to remember it all. If I remember more, I will come back and update some more.
