Walking?!

Abby has officially taken her first steps!  We knew she was close, but it still took me by surprise.  This girl has been wanting to walk for ages now.  She has liked standing since she was 4 weeks (on our laps) and as been walking with assistance for some weeks now.  But last Saturday (4/27), she ventured out on her own for the first time. 

Eric actually was the only one who saw the very first step, then called me into the room. She was walking holding on to his finger, trying to get to me.  He let go, and she kept going!  She walked three steps before reaching me.  No falling down!  I'm not sure she even realized what she did or that Dad wasn't still holding on to her hands.  We've tried to repeat it, but whenever we let go, she just lowers herself down to sit or crawl.  I was waiting to write this post to see if I could get a picture or video, but no such luck. It will have to be a separate one, I guess.

But she did it!  And part of me is sad to see her growing up and getting more independent. She really isn't a little baby anymore. 

A week without Eric

Eric had the fun opportunity of going to China for a week to meet with people he works with over there. Abby and I were quite jealous that we couldn't join him.  We looked at ticket prices and there was no way we were going to spend $1000 for just one week... So we said goodbye and sent him off to Beijing. Instead of being all on our own for the week, we decided to give Abby some quality grandparent time and spent the week at my parents house. Not only did it help to keep me from getting too lonely, but Abby was able to chase cats all week and test out her crawling and walking skills with a ton more space. Good all around.

Somehow I didn't get any pictures of Abby with her grandparents, just got some cute ones of her playing.

Abby had so much fun chasing the cats.  I didn't get any great pictures or videos of her chasing them, but here is Abby and the cat having a stare-down

She discovered toilet paper for the first time.  Our is too high for her to reach, but this one was perfect height!

Outside time.  Lots of grass and dirt to explore! 

  

 

We took an afternoon trip with my parents to Joshua Tree.  It was a bit farther than we were thinking (and Abby sure let us know what she thought of all that car time!), but it was so pretty once we did get there.

Also got to visit with my good friend, Serena, from high school. 

And the cousins came over so Abby decided to join them for her very first time in a wading pool.  She was not a fan. 

Eric came and picked us up on Saturday and we all drove back to SD the next day.  As fun as the week was, it is so much better to be all back together and in our own, tiny apartment. Even with the distractions, I missed my Eric too much!

Our little helper

Well, okay, it isn't really helping. But she sure loves to jump right in when I am opening mail or folding laundry.  And then I will redo everything once she has moved on. 

Getting the mail is one of the daily highlights.  Well, mostly on Mondays since that's when Abby gets a whole pile of junk mail to tear through.

Walking and playing ball - videos

Abby loves walking.  Here is a cute video of her pacing back and forth while Dad was filming.  She was quite upset when we stopped. This is why she needs plenty of time outdoors. There are only so many times she or I want to walk in circles around our tiny apartment. :)

Abby just in the last week or two has started stopping the ball when we roll it to her. I got a pretty good ball rolling session on tape.

Abby - 10 Months

Dearest Abigail,

Wow, little girl, you are in double digits now!  10 months!  This has been such a fun month. You amaze me every day with how happy and so full of endless energy you are. You can really move now.  You crawl so quickly all over the place.  You have this funny looking half crawl thing that you do a lot now where you are on one knee with the other foot flat on the ground. So cute to watch.  You still love walking holding onto fingers and we spend a lot of time circling around the house or the park that way.  You can move those legs fast!  It makes me wonder how soon you will take off on your own.

Along with being able to move around so fast, this month you also figured out how to climb up stairs.  We were sitting outside on our front porch one day early last month when all over a sudden you turned around and crawled right up those three steps.  You didn't even hesitate.  One would have thought you had been practicing.  But I'd never even see you attempt it or look like you were even considering it before.  You definitely took me by surprise!


With all your moving, we have finally had to make some changes to our apartment. All of our bottom shelves in bookcases are now taken up mostly by your toys and other things have had to move higher.  Unfortunately there aren't many places for the displaced things to go...  My biggest worry is all our hardwood floor. Any little fall hurts. Even when I am trying to watch you closely, there are many times when I can't catch you in time.  I don't really know what more we can do about that though.

You love playing on and around us. One day you suddenly started using our legs as a tunnel to walk through and you also love climbing over and through the obstacle courses we make for you with our legs on the floor.  One of your favorite games is when I lie on my back on the ground and you get to climb all over me and give me lots of wet kisses and grab at my nose.

We definitely spend lots of time outdoors now.  The weather is amazing, our apartment is tiny, and you just love being outside.  We go running every morning, then after your morning nap we take off somewhere - beach, park, picnic, long walks, etc.  We usually also spend some time chasing the neighbor cat (you love him!) and playing on our front porch.  And more walks if needed. You get quite a few comments on how tan you apparently look.  Hopefully you aren't getting too much sun! Maybe we should break out the sunscreen more often...

When we are outside you love to collect treasures.  Usually this is a rock that you will pick up and hold onto tightly. That is, until you find a bigger, prettier rock to switch it out for.  It's funny watching you try to pick up these huge rocks (comparative to your size), you can sure be determined. You've also brought home pine cones, pieces of bark, and other random plant parts. Our front area is a treasure trove for you. Lots and lots of rocks. That and the cat puts you in baby heaven whenever we step outside.

We have had some improvements in your sleep which has been wonderful.  You have started to pretty consistently take a 2 hour nap in the mornings. Soooo nice. The afternoons are still hit and miss, though I think we are getting it down a little bit.  You nights have been a bit better.  You even had your very first night ever of sleeping 8 hours straight. Only happened once though. You have still been harder to put down at the beginning of naps, which hopefully gets better!

You decided to celebrate turning ten months with waking up with your first real fever. Its been hovering around 102 to 103 for the last two days. You have sure had your share of Tylenol and cuddling. You might make us break our healthy baby streak by having to take you to the doctor for the first time! Let's not do that, just get better baby girl!

There is so much I could say about you. You are just so wonderful and amazing. I love you!

Love,

Your Mamma

And, of course, some more cute pictures!

On Saturdays Daddy usually joins us on our run

  

Abby's favorite food

Bananas.  Abby loves bananas. She would eat them for every meal if she could. If she sees a banana, she goes for it. At a ward activity a couple weeks ago, we were eating outside on the grass, and she crawled right over to steal someone's banana they were eating. 

While we were camping, Eric discovered a great way to get Abby to look up for pictures (which is often a difficult thing to do) - hold up a banana!  Worked like a charm.

Camping with Baby

Eric finally had a Friday off of work and so we jumped at the chance to go camping (it's usually Mondays that are the holidays so we can never go those weekends). We haven't been since before Abby was born, since before I was even pregnant. So it's been way too long.  We didn't even realize that with it being Spring break week places might fill up... but they do. So we weren't able to go check out a new area like we'd hoped. Instead we went back to Cuyamaca State Park, where we had gone before.

I was a little nervous about going with a baby, but overall it really was just fine. Except the night, that was terribly uncomfortable!  I had Abby with me in my sleeping bag and as a result I could move hardly at all and I was constantly waking up to check that the top of the sleeping bag hadn't come over her face. We'll have to figure out something better next time.

Abby helping Dad set up the tent.  She thought all the dirt and pine needles were just so great.

We did some hiking while we were there.  Not as much as pre-baby, but still enough to make our legs quite sore. She did well taking her normal naps in the Ergo, and for the first time we tried out the back carry.  So much better for hiking than the front!

Taking a break on our way to the summit!

We found a small patch of old, hard snow that Abby got to explore.  Now she has seen snow! (well, sort of)

  

Someone had carved the huge tree trunks to look like a table with chairs around it. Abby lounged for a bit in one of the chairs. (About 2 seconds, then she was off)

We brought Abby's eating chair with us for our campsite meals.  Worked so good!  We had some yummy camping food and Eric got to experiment some with his dutch oven.

We both loved our foil dinners!

Having fun at our campsite

Story time! Notice how we camp in our beach chairs. Perhaps it looked a but odd, but it was sure better than no chair!

Abby also helped to take down the tent.  Such a good helper! ;)

Had to throw this in.  This is in sequence showing Abby's reaction as I walked away to wash our dishes. I'm guessing she wasn't too happy...

And finally, we stopped in Julian (a mountain mining town) for some apple pie. You can tell we were very excited. And then Abby got to eat cucumber and orange slices. :) 

Such a fun weekend!  Hopefully we don't wait 18 months before we go camping again!