I can't believe it's been eighteen months since I pushed this kid out of me. All those people who warned us not to blink were right...time goes by way too fast with kids in the picture.Some stats on our now 18-month-old little girl:
- She's a climber. To a fault. Anything that can be ascended, will be. (This explains why she has a prosthetic tooth already...) Stairs, chairs, slides, benches, shelves, toys, boxes, her brother...you name it, she's tried to get over it.
- She's a talker. We've lost track of the number of words she says and understands, but we're blown away by how much she's learned in such a short amount of time. We read to her and talk to her all the time, and she daily surprises us with new words that seem to come out of nowhere. Like the day she brought me a book of sea creatures and said "octopus" or when her dad was reading to her and she told him they were looking at a butterfly ("bubbafly").
- She's a dog lover. Puppies, to be exact, with the exception of one Big Red Dog that she just can't get enough of. When the dogs from the house behind us bark in the mornings, we often hear her chanting "puppy" from her crib and woofing right back at them. She has a few favorite stuffed puppies, and when one of them is missing or out of reach, her little world starts to crumble. In the absence of a television, we've recently started letting her watch short episodes of Clifford the Big Red Dog online while she sits in our laps. She now thinks that the computer is simply for viewing Clifford and seems confused when we're doing anything else in the office. When the mood for watching an episode hits her, she'll tug on us and tell us "go!" while pointing to the office. If we don't get the hint right away, she sits at our feet chanting "Clickered!" (Clifford) until we get the message.
- She's a singer. Her rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" is surprisingly on key and easily recognizable to most anyone who hears her humming it. She also likes to make up her own songs about whatever's on her mind at the moment. This happens most often when she's strapped into the buggy at the grocery store. She hums while I shop, and every once in a while she throws in a word or two to let me know what she's singing about (puppies, mommy, daddy, baby, and crackers are the current hits).
- She's a dancer. I like to think she gets her complete lack of coordination and love of dancing anyway from me. Her wild dance moves just might confirm this. So far, under the tutelage of Christina's School of Dance(tm) she's learned to spin, jump, "do your hips" (some booty shaking Elvis would be proud of), "do your shoulders" (think Tina Turner performing 'What's Love Got to Do With It'), and we're currently working on "do your knees" (some skinny legged knee knocking, complete with hand motions). This kid's got style...
- She's a cuddler. This, I'm certain, she did not get from me, since the running joke in my family is that the most they can hope for is that I let myself be hugged without squirming too much. (I suspect that my mom may have coaxed Abby into hugging with some sugary treats while I was in the hospital having Caleb, but I can't get her to fess up to it.) Whatever the cause, we're loving Abby's new habits of sneaking up behind us and hugging the back of our knees, running to her room in nothing but her birthday suit after bathtime and jumping into our arms, and leaning in for a smooch with a resounding "muah!"
- She's a klutz. I have watched her fall over from a stationary standing position. I have witnessed her walking into walls as if she didn't see them. I've seen her round a corner too sharply and slam directly into it. I've rescued her from being trapped under her rocking horse, arms and legs splayed in four different directions, when just moments before she was safely seated on top of it. I've seen her do a front flip off the couch because she got stuck inside her collapsible fabric tunnel. This explains the presence of the words "stuck" and "uh-oh" in her vocabulary.
- She's got a mind of her own. The terrible 2's are on us with a vengeance, with six months to go still before we see a pair of candles on her cake. Abby is fiercely independent, very certain of what she wants (and when she wants it) and determined to figure things out and do for herself things that are still just out of reach for her skill level. To this end, she spends a great portion of her day in a state of frustration because what she wants to do is far ahead of what she is physically able to do. It's frustrating for us as well to want so badly for her to succeed when she tries to do things--like feed herself oatmeal with a spoon, or put together complicated puzzles. Cognitavely, we can see that she can handle these skills, but she's still trapped in an 18-month-old body that hasn't quite learned how to do them yet. And as for trying to help her...well, little Miss Independent will have none of that. Like her stubborn old mom and dad, she will do it herself, figure it out herself, and she'll do it on her terms. Just what we needed...one more type A personality in this family.
- She's adorable. Every day brings new challenges and rewards, and every day we love her more. It's so fun to watch her little personality beginning to emerge, but daunting as we think of all the responsibilities involved with raising this strong-willed little girl. She brings us our shoes when she wants to leave the house to go somewhere. She blows kisses. She won't eat meat unless you hide it inside a piece of bread. She thinks belly buttons are hilarious, and thinks nothing of asking every adult in the room to show her theirs. She can fit 12 goldfish crackers in her mouth at one time, and will if you let her. She'll stomp like a dinosaur walking through the mall, if you'll stomp with her. She loves to ride the carousel. She thinks Dora the Explorer is her dark-haired neighbor Maddie. She loves to read and surrounds herself with books whenever she has the chance. Her favorite toy is a giant cardboard box we turned into a fort. She thinks she can make her baby brother stop crying by laying his pacifier in his lap. She tries to share the contents of her sippy cup with her stuffed animals, and with the bulldog on my (now orange-juice-stained) UGA sweatshirt. She runs to the back door yelling "Daddy" each evening when she hears the garage door go up. She thinks sharing means she hands you something and you hand it right back to her. She runs everywhere she goes. I can't remember the last time she just walked to get somewhere. She recognizes her friend Abby Mae in the church nursery and usually greets her with a toy to ease any potential separation anxiety. She gets a little panicky before mealtime when she sees food sitting on the table but no one sitting down yet. She waits when we sit down and reaches for our hands to say a blessing with us before eating. She responds to inquiries about her poopy diapers by running up to us and spinning around with her backside facing our way for a sniff test. She looks for the moon anytime we're in the car and is quick to point out stars that she sees in the sky. She loves my fuzzy pink socks and will lay down on the floor with her head on my feet whenever I'm wearing them.
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