Baby? Where are you?

My baby is crawling. There. I said it. And I'm sad.

I've been waiting for her to do it for a few weeks now, as she's been on the brink for awhile, and now I can check it off. I just felt like she needed to crawl before her 9 month well-baby appointment, so I could tell the doctor that "she's doing it!". But now I feel like my baby, the one who spent nearly 3 weeks in a NICU, is just growing up. She's looking like a little girl. I mean, she IS a little girl and always has been one, but you know what I mean. She's doing things that just a few months ago I couldn't really imagine her doing. Not because I thought she was going to be delayed or anything, but just because what parent can really imagine their tiny baby actually doing things and moving on their own? I mean really? Wasn't she just born?

Seems like yesterday when I was in the NICU, trying to teach her, with her PT, how to suck a bottle.

Seems like yesterday when I was begging her, pleading with her to please, please, PLEASE sleep longer than 2 hours at a shot. Well, now that I think about it, it sort of was yesterday. She's just in the last 2 months been sleeping through the night.

Seems like yesterday that we tried giving her cereal.

And now...she's crawling. And she's not looking back. William is up ahead and she's undoubtedly missing out on something!

Video coverage of the checked-off milestone coming. But right now...we're off to Sky City to do a little bouncing!

Game

Remember those Where's Waldo books? I've got my own version I'd like to share with you.

Where's Abby?


Sometimes I have to look twice, too, so don't worry if you don't spot her right off.

Give it another shot. I promise you she's there.

Okay. Maybe that was too easy.

How about this one?

Where's William?

I admit, this one is harder than the first.

I sneakily took these game photos from my iPhone so they'd be a titch blurry. Makes it harder to play. (Is sneakily a word? No red squiggly line showed up under it so I guess it is.)


One last one. Where's Abby?





Find her? Me neither.

How about William?




NO?

Well...I'm off to find my kids. I know they're here somewhere...under all this mess.

Filling In The Blanks

ALL these photos were taken with my phone, so sorry for the poor quality.


Always with her tongue out!


On St. Patrick's Day. Both William and I wore blue that day (I think the only people in our entire town that didn't wear green!), but only because there was poor planning on my part, since we wore our green duds the day before.


In the double stroller, alone of course. William just has to walk.

Yesterday she sported yet another new hat.

William pretty much plays t-ball everyday. He'll be playing for our Angels soon. Well, as soon as he realizes that he's not supposed to hit the tee.

In the afternoon we went grocery shopping. I'm not sure why I actually expected them to both look at the camera, but whatever. William usually sits in the basket, but since he's been a bit hard to handle while shopping (standing up, pulling things off the shelf) I decided to try having them both in the front. It worked great!

Almost

Abby is so close to crawling. She sees William walking around and she wants to be right in the action.

Story Time

Bedtimes (or anytime involving going to bed) are not William's favorite time of day. He will do whatever it takes to stall the inevitable. However, bedtime stories time seems to be that proverbial spoonful of sugar to make it okay. His current fav is How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by Jane Yolen. Since we read it several times a day, he's got it down pat. He even remembers to *click* his tongue when we get to the part where "Mama comes in to turn off the light".

So, without further ado, I leave you with a bedtime story, as told by me and William.

8 Months

Wow...time has sure flown by. It's been 8 months since our daughter's surprise birth and we love her more each day!

Grandma A wrote this beautiful poem, and she graciously gave me permission to share it.

DEAR ABBY~ANOTHER MILESTONE HAS COME YOUR WAY.....
YOU'RE 8 MONTHS OLD TODAY....=)
YOU'RE CUTE & SWEET AND SO MUCH MORE
WE'LL HAVE TO WAIT TO SEE WHAT'S IN STORE.

FOR SOON YOU'LL BE A SWEET YOUNG THING
RUNNING, AND LAUGHING, & ASKING TO "SWING"
THERE WILL BE TOYS & DOLLS & TEA PARTIES WE KNOW
SO HANG ONTO OUR HATS, CUZ' OFF WE SHALL GO!

ONE DAY YOU'LL BE A BIG GIRL, WITH IDEAS OF YOUR OWN
LET THE DAYS SLOW DOWN, AT LEAST TIL' YOU'RE GROWN !
FOR NOW YOU ARE A SWEETIE PIE, JUST 8 MONTHS OLD,
WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH, MUCH MORE THAN GOLD!

(Her feet are so tiny that her fancy ruffle socks just will not stay on!)


We love you both, sweet children!

Sun, Fun, & Wind

Yesterday I took my kiddos out. The plan was to go to a local lake and have a picnic and play in the sand, but after getting there I found out that our national park and recreation pass was no good there. Bummer. So, we headed off to the ocean, since William was insistent on seeing the water. We soon got to the beach and quickly discovered that the wind was a little more than we could handle. We walked on the sand for a few minutes and wow. Sand was in our mouths, eyes, and hair. I quickly picked William up and made a dash for the car. It was funny....when we got back to the car I realized that the wind had blown one of William's boots straight off! He was just concerned with all the wind that he didn't even realize it. So, after hunting down the missing boot we left the beach and went to the fish hatchery. There was no wind there and the sun made everything so nice and warm! William got to feed the fish and have a picnic.


The trenches were black with fish! They would literally jump out of the water to get the food.


Miss Abby, showing off her tongue.

Abby has to do everything William does, so sitting in her carseat while we ate our picnic lunch was not happening for her!

The kids are not allowed to watch TV during the day, but occasionally I let him watch his Leap Frog DVDs. He's learned to count to 20 and can say the entire alphabet already simply by watching those things. I was cleaning up the table and both of them were unusually quiet so I looked around the corner and William had decided to sit directly in front of Abby, blocking her from playing with her pop-n-pals toy. But for some reason I don't think she minded!

I hesitate to even post this but it's so darn cute! I'm assuming sooner rather than later Abby will be busting out with her alphabet!

More

Abby really likes this toy table, but she likes it best when I'm holding her and she doesn't have to work to play at it. She's just like her bro - up on those toes! No, she's not actually standing but leaning against it. She's still not a complete pro at sitting yet! She sits just fine, but if something exciting is happening behind her she'll just fling herself back for some reason and land on her head. Not a pretty picture.



When Abby was first learning to sit I'd put her in the small toy bin (where William is sitting) so she could practice her sitting without falling over and getting hurt. Sunday night I plunked her in the laundry basket for a second so I could take a picture of her and William jumped right in the toy bin to "be like Abby".


My two loves! Getting them to look AND smile at the camera at the same time is utterly impossible. It's usually William who doesn't have the patience to smile at the camera.

New Activity

I picked up some lace cards today because I thought they would be fun (and help William with fine motor skills). They aren't the "real" lace cards since they are wooden, but I like them better than the paper ones. He immediately caught on to what he was supposed to do with them, but had a hard time coordinating everything since the string was so long.

Don't you just love the way his tongue sticks out while he concentrates?


After a while he wanted to lay down on the couch and work on his "puzzle craft" so I asked him if he wanted a blankie on. "Sure, tain tu" was his immediate response. Alrighty then!

After he finished working on his crafts I asked if he wanted a banana. "Ummmmmmm....no tain tu. I'm good." He's always catching me off guard with little things like this. Watching and listening to him is like watching and listening to a mini-me! Yikes. (Of course I had to insist that he wasn't good, and that a banana was definitely something he wanted since he needed fruit with his upcoming lunch. We bantered back and forth for a minute and finally settled on an apple. Whatever. At least it was fruit.)

Check it Out!

I ran across these shoes on babyhalfoff.com but unfortunately I missed their 1 day 1/2 off sale. I took a second glance at them because of their unique feature - they squeak when one walks correctly in them. As in heel to toe. I know squeaking shoes might not be on every parent's must-have list (who wants more noise, right?) but William still walks on his toes almost constantly and squeaking shoes just might be the answer. I hesitate to buy them, since $31 for kid shoes is out of my league and because William really dislikes anything on his feet. He's always barefoot. We can take a 2 minute trip and when we get there his shoes are off and so are his socks. It's annoying. I guess the idea is cool...the price isn't. Maybe I can stick a squeaker in his socks? Glued to the heel? Hey...I might have an idea here! Gotta go!

Tubbie Time!

My baby is now sitting in the tub. Yesterday was her first attempt at sitting by herself. She sits great by herself when on the floor, so I'm not sure why I waited so long to attempt having her sit in the tub by herself. She topples much easier than when on the floor, but it still makes tubby time much easier now...or more difficult, I'm not sure, since she now knows she can sit and doesn't like reclining on her sling. William loves the company in the tub, too. She actually gives him a run for his money, since she loves to splash him. Her splashes got in his eye (apparently just one) for he panicked and said, "My eye is bawling! My eye is bawling!" (When he's crying uncontrollably, usually when he's lacking sleep, I'll tell him to "stop bawling!", so that's where he gets that word. He pays attention to everything I say!)


I love that they are so close in age! I thought we were nuts at first, but now it's much easier than it was when she was first born. Bathing two is almost as easy as one, but now it's twice the fun!

I Did It!

I made a bootie! Yes, only one, but still! Sad thing is, it won't even fit poor Herbie.

I've been wanting to learn how to make them, and I finally did! I found a great YouTube video that showed step by step instructions that even I could follow. I'm going to make another one (or two!), this time much bigger. I'm not sure what this gal was thinking when she put the pattern together...it might have fit Abby as a preemie, but I'm not sure about even that!

The lighting is poor (it's past 10pm so it's dark) but the yarn is a dark rose color. Just had to post because I'm right proud of this tiny thing!

New Dress

This cute number is from Aunt Lynnelle, given to her when she was first born. I never thought she'd be big enough to wear it. Well...here we are!

1st Word!

I'm not quite ready to jot it in the baby book yet, as this might be sheer coincidence, but here's Abby's first word. Don't hold your breath - it ain't "Mama". (No, that's not a fart at the end, just some weird sound she made with her mouth, but I laughed every time I heard that part so I just had to include it!)



This little head-scoot thing is how she gets around everywhere! She can really go pretty fast.

In other news, I tried giving her a sippy cup this past week and she sort of got the hang of it. We'll be working more with it, as I only have one bottle, so having the sippy gives me another option.

She's also getting up on all fours and doing the whole "rocking" thing. She'll be crawling before we know it! (I'm not rushing her, as I know what increased mobility will do to my sanity!)