Abby has this game she loves to play. When I come in to get her once she's awake, she'll plop back onto her crib mattress. I'll sit down and look at her through the slats. Then, she'll stand up and plop back down when I stand up and ask her if she wants to get out. She thinks this is hilarious and does it in the bathtub too. Well, last week after a few round of this, she decided she'd had enough and I watched in horror as she tried to climb out of her crib! She pulled herself up on the corner of the crib so she could rest her belly up there. Then, she put her foot on the top of the rail. Her entire body was on the top of the crib rail at one point. She hasn't been able to figure out that last step to get all the way over yet. Instead, she ends up falling back into her crib.

So far, we've just been super diligent about going in there the second we hear a peep from her, and we've been keeping her up longer between naps to make sure she's good and tired. I haven't seen her try to climb out since. We're at a catch-22 with this. If we don't convert her crib into a toddler bed, we run the risk that she'll fall while climbing out and seriously hurt herself. If we do convert it, we run the risk that she'll get out of bed and play in her room. When she gets bored with that, she'll probably leave the room and wander the house. If we lock her in room, she'll scream to be let out. What would you do?

Back at the Park, Part 2

Let's play Name That Tree! Does anyone know about this sort of thing? Rita, you know flowers and stuff. These are all from our walks. I haven't seen any flowers, but we have a lot of flowering trees. I'd love to know what they are.

The first two pictures are the same tree from this picture last week. It smells so good!








This one's really weird looking. It's bare except for these clumpy things at the end of the branches.


This tree is all over around here.


I think this is the same as the first two pictures, but it looks different when looking at the whole tree.





This one's not a tree, but a bush we have in the patio. It's what Abby's pointing at here.


Deer! The fourth one is ahead of the rest. I didn't have my camera when we saw the fox.

Back at the Park

Abby only throws tantrums at home, so we've been getting out a lot lately. Most mornings, she and I go to the park. This park isn't just a patch of grass with a playground. It's huge, and it's right across the street from the property. There are something like 7 miles of trails, so I put her in the stroller and we walk for about 20 minutes. We're in the foothills of the mountains, so we're constantly seeing wildlife. We've seen deer 3 different times on our walks. This is no surprise since we see deer all the time around the property. I'm starting to think that they're same deer everytime on the trails, though, because there have been 4 of them all 3 times. This morning, we also had a small red fox walk right in front of us! Damon also mentioned that there are black bears in the area! Apparently, they are no out of hibernation, so people are asked not to leave pet food and bird feeders out.

After we walk, we go to the actual park area and play. Abby's not really interested in the playground equipment yet, so we spend our time in the horseshoe pit and running up and down the pathways.




















She found a leftover hidden Easter egg, and had a blast dropping it and chasing it when it rolled.

16 Months

This month, we have entered The Tantrum Zone. Yup, it's starting already. It wasn't too bad at first. Her tantrums were few and far between, and they'd only last a minute. Abby's now graduated to full-blown, throw herself on the floor, tantrums. We're never going to survive this phase. I'm ready to pull my hair out by the time Damon comes home from work most days, and this is only the beginning!

Much of her frustration has to do with the fact that she suddenly understands so much of what we're saying, but she can't tell us what's going on yet. Seemingly overnight, something clicked for her and she understands our words even though she can't repeat them. She knows where her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, knees and feet are. She can also point out Mommy's and Daddy's. She's made the distinction between feet, shoes, and socks. She knows what a light is. She knows that her milk and cheese are in the fridge. This is a big source of her tantrums because she gets frustrated that she can't open the fridge. When we open it for her to get her cup of milk, she throws a tantrum because we won't let her play in there. After a week-ish of this, she's learning and isn't getting so upset when we close it. When I ask her if she wants to eat, she'll walk to the highchair and point to her mouth (which is the sign for food/eat. She learned that on her own because we were to lazy to teach her sign language). The one we're the most proud of is the remote. If we ask her for the remote, she'll look for it and give it to us!

While she hasn't had a "word explosion" yet, she is starting to say more words. She can say shoes, cheese ("teese"), hot ("ha"), and thank you (tantu). She doesn't use them very often, but it's progress. Whenever she hands us something, we always thank her, so now she sometimes says thank you at the same time. She hasn't learned to thank us for something yet. Everything is still "da" when she points at it. When she babbles, it's clear that she's trying to have a conversation with you. She is so animated when she "talks." Her hands are flying trying to get her point across, and she'll nod her head like she's seen me do when I talk to someone. One thing she's still not saying? MAMA!





She wasn't throwing a tantrum in this picture. She just likes to lay on the ground and look up sometimes.

No More Bottles

We started weaning Abby off the bottle when we got home from visiting family in the Midwest for the holidays. We went about it slowly because she wasn't drinking more than a couple ounces a day from her straw cups (she couldn't get the hang of sippy cups, so we switched to cups with straws when we started). Her pediatrician said that as long as she was off the bottle by around 15 months, it was no big deal. We'd already gotten to the point where she was only getting a bottle before naps and before bedtime. I always gave her a cup with meals, even though she didn't drink much. We started with the before-bed bottle and it went much better than I expected. She never complained when she didn't get a bottle anymore.

Since the bedtime bottle went so well, we moved on to the first nap bottle. Things were a little bumpier with this one, but not too bad. Then we had to travel to California and Colorado in the same week. I resorted back to giving her a bottle to get to sleep while travelling to keep her from crying herself to sleep. When we got back from Colorado we knew we were going to be moving, so we decided to wait to wean her until we were settled here since there was too much going on for her. By this time, she was drinking from her cups really well, so I switched her to water only in her bottles. We also went ahead and cut out the bedtime bottle since that was the one she had the least trouble with. Switching to water worked well because she wouldn't drink as much while in her crib. Sometimes she'd finish the whole bottle (I'd give her about 5 oz.), but most days she'd only drink a couple ounces.

Once we were here in Colorado for a few days, it was clear that Abby was feeling settled here, so I decided to just take the bottle away cold turkey. She hasn't even missed it! The first time I put her down for a nap without a bottle, she did reach for it, but she didn't fuss at all when it wasn't there. She just looked at me like "Oh well." It's been a week now, and she's been going down for naps just as easily as before.

It's a gorgeous morning, so Abby and I went to the park. Last time we were here, she loved the horseshoe pit. This time, she wouldn't get in. This is as close as she got.






She loves to walk up hills like this, then run down.





First signs of Spring.



Walking up the hill is a lot of work. Break time.








Time to get out.

I bought Abby these adorable sandals a couple days ago (a whole size bigger than the sneakers she's been wearing. Oops!), and she wants to wear them All. The. Time! She's wearing socks because we hadn't been up very long before she brought one over for me to put on her, so I just took her footie jammies off to put them on.


The whole outfit.

Assume the Position

This is Abby's favorite way to watch the Teletubbies.

Why I Wanted A Girl

Or, No One's Going To Be Calling Abby A Boy Today!




















Ileen, thanks for the outfit!

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

The weather is perfect today, so we went up to the zoo. Damon and I couldn't sleep last night because we were so excited to take Abby to the zoo. It's only about 10 minutes from where we're staying, so we bought a family membership so we can go anytime we want. It's the only mountain zoo in the country. It's literally about halfway up Cheyenne Mountain, so the views were amazing.



We bought that hat in the gift shop in the entrance. She took it right off once past the giraffes and I never could get it to stay on again.







For $1 you can buy 4 "giraffe crackers" to feed the giraffes, so they're not shy about coming right up to you.