Abby Update - 31 Months

A quick update and some photos of my adorable little chatterbox seems long overdue, so here is what's going on with our beautiful little girl. :-)

As I said above, Abigail is a chatterbox. She is constantly talking and asking questions. Her vocabulary is expanding daily, and her sentences/thoughts are getting longer and more in-depth. She is (normally) very polite, but we are continuing to work with her on her manners - "May I please..." (instead of simply saying "please") is our current project. She now has our nightly prayers memorized. She will recite the "Our Father" and the "Hail Mary" by herself, and she sings our special goodnight song with me every night. In addition to singing at night, she has begun singing songs, some that she has learned at Tot Music or daycare, and others that she has made up herself. (My favorite is an Abby-original "I Love You This Much" - I'm still trying to get it on film...) Abby also loves to read, with Dr. Seuss as one of her current favorites. Can I tell you how proud I was the first time I could read Fox in Socks without stumbling over the line by Mr. Knox at the end of the story:

When a fox is in the bottle where the tweetle beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle, THIS is what they call...

...a tweetle beetle noodle poodle bottled paddled muddled duddled fuddled wuddled fox in socks, sir!

Thankfully, many of Abby's other books are not such tongue twisters, and she has heard many of them so often that she will recite them to me as I turn the pages. I never tire of her saying "We forgot to by the oatmeal!" when Bert remembers what the string on his finger meant. Plus, I love that many of the books that Abby is reading now are books that Kate and I read when we were little girls. :-)

Abby is still a good eater. She loves cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, and we can get her to eat almost anything for dinner. Chicken, pasta and veggies (especially carrots, peas, and broccoli) are still her favorites, but we can get her to try almost anything, as long as she can have bites off mommy and daddy's plates.

We have been encountering some sleep issues recently. Normally, Abby will go to bed right at 9:00 pm and will sleep until 7:00 - 7:30 am. Lately, she's been needing some extra cuddles and songs before bed, and she's been falling asleep later and later, even when we try to put her to bed earlier to account for this longer bedtime routine. Unfortunately, the end of day finds my energy level flagging, so Abby's bedtime difficulties are not made any easier by my own fatigue. Coupled with the fact that naps are sometimes part of the daily routine and other days they are not, we're dealing with some sleep issues. We have been through rough patches concerning Abby's sleep before, so I'm hopeful that if we "stay the course" that she'll eventually settle back into a good bedtime routine.

Some of Abby's favorites right now, aside from the books and foods mentioned above, are:

• her giraffe blanket - she won't go to sleep without it
• coloring, whether with crayons in a coloring books or with a pen on scrap paper, the kid loves to draw (even if her recent "super submarine" looked more like an egg to me...)
• play-doh - I sometimes feel like I will never get the smell of play-doh off my hands. But, she loves it when we make play-doh bracelets, so how can I say no?
• reading - this kid would look at books for hours (if she wasn't such a ball of energy and needed to run around so much!) I love that she looks forward to reading books, and I can't help but smile when she sees the pictures on a page and is able to "read" me the words.
• taking walks - put this kid in a stroller with a snack, and we could cruise the neighborhood for hours. She loves watching cars, looking for animals, and picking out yellow houses. Despite the fact that we have several yellow houses in our immediate vicinity, Abby will always say "I hope we see a yellow house, mommy. I've never seen one of those before." Then, she gets so excited when we do see one, it just makes me laugh.
• playing outside in general - whether it's blowing bubbles, riding her tricycle, drawing on the driveway with sidewalk chalk, or simply smelling the flowers in our flower beds, Abby loves to be outside.

Some of the challenges that we're dealing with at 31 months, in addition to our recent sleep troubles, include:

• Abby is still very much a "mommy's girl." If Carey and I are both around, mommy has to do it. Whether it is wiping her hands after dinner, opening her box of crayons, or changing her into her pajamas, "No, mommy do it!" is the common phrase. Carey is an amazing dad, and Abby loves him very much, so it's frustrating that she behaves this way. We're trying very hard to work in more Abby and daddy time, but I have the feeling that August will be a difficult time of adjustment for Abby when she realizes that she will have to share mommy's attention with her little brother...
• Potty training has stalled. She will pee on the potty when we put her on it, but she does not like to go #2 on the potty (except at daycare - go figure), and the few times that we have tried underwear (Dora the Explorer and Yo Gabba Gabba underwear, no less!), she has had accidents. I don't want to push her too hard for fear that she will completely revert and not use the potty at all, but I'm starting to feel the pressure to get my almost-3-year-old out of diapers before the little guy shows up.
• No. This word is becoming a larger part of Abby's vocabulary, and it is causing mommy and daddy quite a bit of stress. I understand that asserting her independence is important, and I don't want to stifle her. But at the same time, she had an absolute meltdown with Carey this morning, causing him to miss his train into work and starting off Monday on the wrong foot for both daddy and daughter. We're experimenting with timeouts and taking away toys/privileges when she misbehaves like this, but only time will tell if this method works or if we have to move to Plan B (whatever that is...).

I do want to end on a positive note, because Abby is such a joy to us so much of the time - I don't want to make it seem like every moment of every day is a struggle. Abby is excited that she's getting a baby brother. As soon as we found out that the baby was a boy, she was telling everyone who would listen that mommy is having a baby brother. One day a few weeks ago, Abby and I were out running some errands. From the backseat, I heard her talking to herself and singing along with her music CD. Out of nowhere, I heard: "I love mommy. I love daddy. I love baby brother." On another night, when I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub drying her off after her bath, she leaned over, kissed my belly, and said "I love you, baby brother." These moments are even more precious because no one prompted her to do them - she did it all on her own. On another night, I was sitting on the couch while Abby was coloring on the floor with daddy, and Little Man started kicking me. When I announced to Carey and Abby that the baby was kicking me, Abby looked concerned and asked: "Is my baby brother hurting you, mommy? Cause kicking is not nice and I'll tell him to stop." After explaining to her that brother is still very small, so his kicks are soft enough that they don't really hurt mommy, she told me to tell her if that changes and she'll tell baby brother to be careful. I truly love seeing the love that Abigail has for her little brother already, and I pray that it will continue to grow stronger over the next few months, increasing even more after his birth.

And now, what everyone has been looking for, some photos of our beautiful little girl. In the midst of the challenges and joys and precious moments that Abigail brings to us every day, Carey and I continue to be so grateful that we are her parents, and we thank the Lord for her each and every day.

Playing at the Long Island Children's Museum with daddy
April 2, 2011



Someone did not want to get off the carousel at the Children's Museum, even though daddy had already ridden it with her four times...
April 2, 2011



Eating a "cheesy omelet." Cheese omelets are one thing that I often seem to crave during this pregnancy, and whenever Abby sees me make one for myself, she wants one, too!
April 8, 2011



Riding the "big kid slide" at the park with daddy
April 9, 2011



Playing in the box that our new hamper came in. She kept jumping up and yelling "Surprise!"
April 14, 2011



Helping mommy fold laundry. Perhaps not surprisingly, the laundry that Abby folds looks a lot like the laundry that Carey folds... (hee hee)
April 17, 2011