Setting the record straight...

There are some ghastly rumors flying about that apparently stem from my lack of blog updates. Lest her fans and family start to believe that Abby hasn't done anything cute in the past few weeks, I figured it was time to set the record straight. The truth is, our dear daughter has simply done so many cute things since I last updated that my big belly and I have had trouble keeping up. My apologies to the grandparents and other relatives who rely on me to supply their weekly dose of cuteness. I'll try to be better, I promise.

So what's Abby been up to while I've been shirking my blogging duties? Let's recap...

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	In what might just qualify as the cutest thing ever, Abby's sensitive side has started to show itself in the nurture and care of her stuffed animals. She's insistent on sharing whatever is in her sippy cup with whatever puppy, duck or baby doll happens to be nearby. When there are no care objects around for her to feed and water, she'll head into the playroom and find one, then drag it into the kitchen and smack her lips while she feeds it. When she's done, she'll look at us and offer a resounding "mmmmm" to let us know that the puppy/duck/baby is full, and then she'll proceed to feed herself again.
	Abby's getting more and more independent by the day. She's got an extremely low tolerance for being helped with simple tasks that we try to teach her, like holding a fork properly, and insists on doing it herself most of the time. To her credit, if we wait long enough, she often gets it right. I sympathize with her impatience at not being able to master things on a first try. Unfortunately, I think she gets this from me. (We'll deal with why I still haven't learned to drive a stick shift in a later post...) But along with this fierce determination to get things right the first time comes a short fuse when things don't go her way...like when I had to take her puppy book away to repair the page she tore out of it. This is the face of someone whose world is crumbling around them at the hands of a mom who needs to rescue a book from further destruction. It was not a pretty sight.
	We're discovering every day just how much she's soaking in everything she sees and hears. After reading her new Bible story book to her one afternoon, I left her in her playroom while I went into the kitchen to start dinner. A few moments later, I heard her saying "noh-noh" and making her elephant noise over and over again. When I went to see what in the world she was doing, I found her organizing her Noah's Ark toys (noh-noh is her name for Noah) around the book that she had opened back up to the page about Noah and the flood. When I asked what she was reading, she pointed at the book and said "noh-noh" then showed me the Noah figurine and did the same. Later that night, I read her the story of Noah's Ark from her toddler Bible and asked her to point to the rainbow, and she promptly did just that.
	Overwhelmed by the influx of Christmas goodies that are taking over her playroom, Abby often finds solace in the privacy of her trusty old cardboard box fort. She's discovered that turning it on its side leaves her completely enclosed, and she's not a fan of being interrupted when she's in her cozy little book nook trying to read about her dear friend Clifford the Big Red Dog.
	Inspired by her friend Abby Mae, curly-headed Abby Jean tried out a new hairdo, much to the chagrin of her dad. It seems he prefers the wild bed-head look that her flyaway tendrils ordinarily fall into, and was quite distressed to find his daughter had been replaced by a Cindy Lou Who look-alike. That's ok...it's too much trouble to wrangle her and twist those little elastic bands into her hair anyway. Next time I go to that much work, I want to be rewarded with more than a half-inch long pigtail.
	She's successfully mastered following the command to "sit down on your bottom" when she wants something to drink. This serves multiple purposes, not the least of which is saving me the trouble of wiping up orange juice as I chase around a supposedly no-spill sippy cup. Also, whenever she's thristy, Abby has gotten in the habit of tugging on the refrigerator door until we notice her, then promptly falling down on her tushie in front of it while she waits for us to get her something to drink.

In other news, I'm still pregnant, and waiting anxiously* on little Caleb to make his debut.

*Waiting anxiously=whining pitifully about not being in labor