Well, I guess we are officially done with the “infant” stage….Abigail is ONE! Feels pretty crazy to even think about that because we’ve basically been in baby mode for the last 5.5 years. Our little “peapod” may be a year old now, but I refuse to call her a toddler…haha. She’s just too much of a squirt for that term yet! :)
I sat Abigail on our scale last week, and I think she’s weighing around 16 pounds right now. But it’s a little hard to measure a wiggly baby, so who really knows. We’ll find out official stats next week at her checkup. Abigail is wearing mostly 6-9 month clothes, although she wore a 3 month outfit last week that actually still fit :) I think it helps that it’s summer time because I’m pretty sure 6 month pants would be getting too short by now. She wore a pair of size 1 sandals recently, and her toes were almost to the end, so I’m thinking her feet are more like size 2 now…or close, at least. She had 3 teeth as of her birthday and is working on #4 right now.
Abigail is still nursing 4 times/day: first thing in the morning, around 11 AM, 4 PM, and at bedtime. She hasn’t tried cow’s milk yet because she hasn’t figured out how to drink from a sippy cup. We’ve tried several different kinds of cups, and no luck yet. In her eyes, all they are good for is to chew on for a few minutes before tossing them on the floor ;) As far as table food goes, she is eating three good meals a day. Breakfast is usually a handful of Cheerios and pieces of fruit. I’ve started giving her PB&J for lunch sometimes (because I’m always making one for Savannah anyway), and it’s amazing how fast Abigail will eat her bites of sandwich. She scarfs it down! For supper, Abigail usually just eats whatever we’re eating as long as it’s soft enough. She will eat just about anything so far and doesn’t seem too picky. We haven’t tried sweet potatoes again since her projectile vomiting incident, but we may do that before too much longer. Thankfully, she has done fine with all other new foods.
Knock on wood…Abigail is still sleeping through the night most of the time. Occasionally, there will be a night where she cries out in the middle of the night, but those are thankfully pretty rare these days. Bedtime is usually around 7:45 – 8 PM. We are ALL waking up earlier now that school has started, so I would say Abigail wakes up anywhere between 6:30 AM and 6:45 AM usually. She sleeps with her paci and an abundance of stuffed animals in her crib—Savannah loves to throw things in there (“I want Abigail to sleep with this!”).
I am still trying to figure out a good nap schedule for Abigail now that school has changed up our routine a bit. She really needs at least 2 naps per day still and occasionally a third if the others are really short. Before school started, if we ran errands in the morning and she didn’t get a great morning nap, she’d take a long afternoon nap to make up for it starting around 2 PM. Well…we have to pick up Brooklyn from school at 2:40. I’ve been trying to push Abigail’s morning nap earlier, so that she can squeeze an afternoon nap in before we leave for school, but so far I’ve had to wake her up at 2:20 more days than not. And she is SO tired by about supper time. I’m sure we’ll get the kinks worked out eventually, and I think it’ll be easier when she goes down to one nap/day, but for now we are struggling.
Abigail is on the move these days! She isn’t crawling in the traditional sense, but she is scooting on her bottom and pulling herself along with her arms. She looks like a little crab…it’s hilarious! It works for her though because she can get around all over the house that way. She is pulling up to her knees (sometimes with one foot down), but hasn’t pulled up to her feet yet. But, she is definitely starting to notice things above her head so I’m guessing it won’t be long. She hasn’t tried the stairs yet, but she is checking out pretty much the entire downstairs these days.
Her favorite places in the house are her big sisters’ rooms—so many fun things to chew on in there—and the laundry room (cat food—duh!). Yes, we are officially in the “sneak off and eat cat food” phase…haha. This time around, it’s a little less obvious because Gabby’s food bowl is in the laundry room whereas in our old house the cat food bowl was in the kitchen. So, sometimes she’ll get in there for a minute or two before I notice her! Oh well, it’s a rite of passage in our family :)
Abigail may have started saying her first “real” word in the past few days. On Sunday, we were getting ready to leave Cici’s house after lunch, and she said something that sounded just like “bye bye!”. Then, this morning, I was holding Abigail as I walked Brooklyn out to the car to leave for school, and Abigail spit out her paci and said, “Bye!”. So I think ‘bye’ may be her first official word. She babbles plenty of other things including “mamama” and “dadadada” but I don’t think she’s really calling us by our names yet. She has also starting clapping her hands together sometimes and banging toys on the floor. She will shake the little instruments at music class now, and this afternoon I caught her picking up her paci and dropping it on the floor over and over. She’s definitely getting curious about how things work.
This is the first month we’ve really had to get onto Abigail for doing things that she shouldn’t. She loves to pull hair and earrings and hit people in the face. She’s bitten her sisters a few times each. We’ve also had to get onto her for playing with the blinds, touching the wall outlets, and of course, eating cat food. So far, all it really takes is just telling her ‘no’ for her to burst into tears…haha. She may be a sensitive soul like Savannah was as a baby.
I feel like Abigail is going to be a pretty social little thing, but time will tell I guess. She doesn’t care at all who is holding her…she is just happy to be held. She sits with other people at church sometimes and doesn’t bat an eye. This week was the first instance that I can remember where a stranger has made her cry by talking to her, and I think it was mainly because she was tired at the time. She does bury her head in my shoulder sometimes when people speak to her, but it’s almost like a game. She is happy baby overall as long as she is getting attention. The main times that she cries at home are when I have to set her down on the floor to get something done. The nerve of that mommy!
Likes: chewing on everything, eating banana, playing in her sisters’ rooms, splashing in the tub, exploring the house
Dislikes: not being held, running out of food on her tray, being told NO, getting too much attention from Savannah (who tends to be a little rough with her “hugs” and “pats”), and having a dirty diaper (which is a first for us, because Brooklyn and Savannah never cared if they had a dirty diaper…haha! Abigail always cries though.)
It doesn’t seem right that you are a year old already, Abigail! Your first few weeks of life were less than ideal, but we made it through, and we are so glad you are part of our family. We love you so much, sweet girl!
