Belated 14 Months

I’m quite a bit late, but Abby’s been doing so much that I had to post an update.

We’ve taught to her to wave bye. We’ll wave and say “Bye Bye!” and she waves back and says “Da Da!” in the same sing-songy voice. She associates Damon going to the garage with him going to work, so whenever she sees him going that way, she’ll wave bye. If we don’t notice when she’s waving at us, her “Da’s” become more insistent until we realize what she’s doing. Also, I can tell her we’re going bye-bye, and she walks to the laundry room to the door leading to the garage.

Speaking of “Da,” everything is still “da.” She has learned that Damon is “dada” and I’m not, though. She just hasn’t figured out what to call me. Sure, I’ll get excited “DA’s!” when I come into a room, but she’s not calling me “da” you know. She points at everything and asks “da?” I interpret it as “what’s that?” so I always tell her the name of what she’s pointing at. This is how we spend most of our days.

She’s also discovered the pictures on the table in our entryway. If she’s on her tippy-toes, she can reach them enough to push them out of her reach. I’ve been explaining to her that those aren’t toys, then I’ll pick her up and tell her who is in every picture. When we get to one with her in it, I’ll tickle her belly. She loves it.

She’s learned “hi” in the last couple of days. She has an old cell phone of mine that she loves to put up to her ear and talk like she sees us do. Whenever she does that, I’ll say “hi!” over and over, and now she’s started saying it too.

She’s trying to eat with utensils. Several weeks ago, she kept pointing at my fork while we were eating dinner, so I got her one too. After a few tries, she managed to stab one of her ravioli. Once it was on the fork, she didn’t know what to do with it, so she just pulled it off with the other hand. Eventually, she figured out that she could put the fork in her mouth with the ravioli on it to eat it. We were amazed! She hasn’t done it very often since. Yesterday, I was feeding her yogurt and had given her a spoon to play with. Every so often, I’d put a little on her spoon but she didn’t know what to do with it. I put a little on her tray, and she managed to scoop a little with the spoon and get it in her mouth. Of course, she used her other hand to really make a mess of things first.


She loves to give hugs. She’s not that big on kisses, but she’s constantly running into our arms and giving us a hug. She even pats my back like I do to her. When she gives me a hug, I’ll say “Awwww!” and she repeats it. That’s the best part of our days. There’s nothing better than Abby hugs.