Abby Update
Abby Update at 9 Months
Well, I’ve been preoccupied with my parents here, making cake, been and still am sick, and trying to look after a very snotty chesty Abby (and a husband struck down with food poisoning over the weekend but he’s good now) so haven’t had much time to update this blog.
I’ve been trying to post this Abby update for the last couple of weeks, so I’m going to bullet-point some things because there’s so much to say!
- Can wave “bye”. This works most of the time on demand.
- Starting to share her food. Usually this is by way of thrusting a fistful of food in your direction and waiting for you to respond.
- Smacks her lips and kicks in excitement when there’s food on offer.
- Calls out to other babies, and Fez. When I say “call”, it’s usually “shout”.
- No longer using her SafeT Sleep and often ends up at one end, and wakes up with bar marks on her forehead…
- Has had a taste of a Big Mac pattie but wasn’t so impressed.
- Has three teeth now – she just cut a top tooth and its partner is on the way. Still protests teeth-brushing.
- Says “Ta” when you give her something (you have to remind her though). Then she repeats it while she’s eating – “Ta ta ta ta ta”.
Cheeky
Attack of the babies
Abby and Baxter having lunch
I strolled around Lyall Bay last week with Harriet and Baxter from our PIN group. Abby wore her snow suit (another awesome hand-me-down) and looked like one of those Eskimo lollies you get in Pascalls Party Packs. (If you want to read more about the controversy surrounding Eskimo lollies, there’s another article Imagining a world without eskimo lollies – it isn’t hard to do. And how about Eskimo Pies? Funny how the recent New Zealand Eskimo lollie controversy made it to Wikipedia yet Eskimo Pies have been around since the 1920s!)
Pink and marshmallowy
Anyway, back to Abby. Here she is looking like a pink Eskimo lolly again, ready for another nippy stroll with the whole family, even Fez this time.
Abby ready for a Wellington stroll
Oh, I forgot to mention how I took both Abby and Fez for a walk one day, by myself. It really hurts your hand pushing a stroller and trying to control an excited pup at the same time! I’m looking forward to more sunny walks, as soon as we both get over this damn cold.
Abby Update at 36 Weeks
Spent a busy but nice afternoon out with my cousin and her newborn Olivia last Friday. It was such a nice day and Abby was extremely well behaved. At one stage Olivia started crying and Abby watched her like she was thinking “What’s up with that!?”
Someone's crying and it's not me!
I really do enjoy being out with her just after her lunch – it’s the couple of hours when she’s just laid back, awake and not grumpy. It’s great how you can distract a baby with food too. As Abby was approaching the ’so-tired-I-might-cry-now’ stage, she was lucky enough to have roast potatoes when the mums finally got their lunch at the rebuilt Maranui Cafe in Lyall Bay.
Second cousins
Abby’s been getting lots more finger food lately. Toast with a smidgen of marge and vegemite seems to be a favourite, or a luncheon/cheese club sandwich also goes down well. I’m not quite sure how much to give her at meals now that she’s having finger food too. She has about 4-5 tablespoons of mashed food, and then I let her munch on some finger food like toast, broccoli or egg, and then a piece of fruit, for example. Often she’ll also get a rusk to chew on afterwards. She has about half a cup’s worth in total. I think it’s enough – for now. I’ll be increasing the amount of her meals gradually as she’s supposed to be getting most of her nutrients from solids at this age. Also, I’m cutting down from 4 to 3 bottles a day as one is being replaced with an afternoon tea snack.
Waar's me parrot then?
Her second tooth has just cut through. Hooray – we can now say “it’s time to brush your teeth” instead of “tooth” :D Brushing is still a joke though. I hope she’ll learn that licking the toothbrush is not what she’s supposed to do or we’ll have some problems later on.
Abby loves her baths these days. She knows what’s coming when the tub is being filled and can’t wait to get in and play. She even has a little cry when you take her out!
She naps twice a day now – usually one shorter nap (less than an hour) and one longer nap (2 hours). We try and get her to bed around 7:30-8pm, and she usually has around 10-11 hours sleep a night. It’s awesome!
If you throw it, I will fetch it
Fez has realised that Abby is a human being who can play with him – and she will at some stage. He often throws his toy her way (and sometime drops it on her) and waits for her to play fetch with him. She of course grabs and commences to shove it into her mouth only for her fun to be ruined by mummy.
My babies playing with their toys
Oh, and I’ve started looking into daycares for October. I know I’ve left it really late, but there’s a couple with vacancies for Abby at Greta Point in Lyall Bay. Just need to visit them and sign her up. I’m still in denial about returning to work though…
Abby crawling
For your viewing pleasure – Abby “crawling” as Fez looks on (though he’s more interested in her music box).
Abby Update at 34 Weeks
Abby is finally saying “mama”!!
No longer is she forever babbling “da-da-da” and “dad-dee”, she’s now saying “ma-ma-ma”, “mum-mum” and “mum-mee”! Yay, finally some recognition! Of course she probably doesn’t know what those words mean, but she can say them. I’m so proud.
Abby with her mum-mum
Abby is now 8 months old. We’ve managed to drop her evening catnap so we’re down to just two naps a day. Her naps are around 1-2 hours long. Dropping the evening nap has resulted in an earlier bedtime. She’s down around 8-8:30 most nights now instead of 9-9:30. We put her to bed at 7:30pm tonight so we’ll see if she stays asleep all night or if I’m in for an early wakeup call!
Rusk-faced cousins
She’s also well on her way to crawling. She gets her butt in the air and uses her legs to push up and her arms to pull forward – looks like a commando shuffle is progressing… she’s not quite there, but she certainly can move herself around now (in all directions) especially when there’s some tasty fluff or dog toy she can see!
Her one tooth is growing nicely (it’s damn sharp by the way), and another is just about to break the surface. Brushing is still a joke because she’s decided she likes the taste of toothpaste and sticks her tongue out to get it, making it almost impossible to brush her tooth. Might have to just rub on some toothpaste with my finger now and then.
I has scrammed eggs
Abby is eating more challenging food now. She’s had some fun with toast fingers, scrambled eggs and steamed broccoli – unfortunately she likes to shove more than she can chew in her gob and ends up choking and gagging every now and then.
Abby on the swing
She had her 8 month Plunket checkup today. According to their scales she’s 9.52kg and 74cm tall – on the top end of the charts. After her visit, I decided to give her a go on the infant swing in the park. She chuckled with delight. Must do this more often.
Abby Update at 32 Weeks
Abby is now seven months old! Wow, has time flown. I’m due back at work in three months – eek!!
At 30 weeks
- Went on her first plane trip to Auckland. Not so fun when she got tired and had her usual bedtime cry!
- Moves around in her walker in all directions. She only used to be able to roll backwards but she’s all go now.
- Moving onto lumpier solids – gradually.
- Sits up well and can rebalance herself most of the time.
- Can hold her water bottle by the handles and drink by herself in short bursts. She likes to chew on the teat and fling the bottle around though.
- Plays in the bath.
- Shakes her toys.
- Plays with Fez.
Abby's first plane ride
Mmmm tasty dog-chewed rag...
At 31 weeks
- Caught a cold – boo.
- Likes dropping things to watch them fall.
- Bangs her toys to make noise.
- Can “give you five”, but only down low.
- Noms on rusks.
- Sits and happily plays with the toys in her toy box. Still needs cushions around her because she likes to jerk backwards without warning and she has a flat-enough head as it is.
- “Chews” food with her gums.
- Has breakfast and lunch with mum at the table. Her dinner is earlier than ours though so she ends up watching us gobble our food while she has to make do with a rusk.
- First tooth requires brushing. Ridiculous task – how do you make a baby spit out toothpaste? She just eats it. I put water on the brush, lean Abby over the sink and hope gravity does most of the work.
It's all smiles with her rusk
Bouncing in her slippers
At 32 weeks
- Over the worst of her cold, and just needs to blow her nose if only she knew how…
- Might be teething again as the red cheeks have reappeared.
- Has outgrown her 3-6 month clothes and mummy is sad to be putting them away.
- Zooms around in her walker – mind the Fez! (Sorry about the cellphone quality of the video.)
Abby Update at 28 Weeks
Actually Abby is 29 weeks tomorrow because I’d been too busy to post this earlier :)
29 weeks – that’s 6 and a half months old – that’s more than half a year!
She now can sit quite well, as long as she’s not trying to do anything… otherwise she starts a slow descent into a face plant, so you have to always be there just in case.
Abby sitting/falling over
She’s also good at standing, with some help to balance. We put her in her walker and she chooses to stand most of the time in it.
Abby will need her first hair cut soon – another person’s hair I’ll be cutting forever… well until she’s old enough to pay for her own haircuts I suppose (and by then she’ll probably want a fancy style cut). The other week I tied her hair in pigtails just because I could.
Pigtails!
Ok, so they’re a bit crooked but you try tying pigtails on a 6 month old who won’t sit still.
Abby loves to play, both with her toys and with other people. She’s a very grabby baby, always reaching out and trying to grab things whether it’s a toy, the dog, or other babies unfortunately. (And what’s with always going for the face?)
I love my toys, especially my blocks. See my block?
Oh, her first tooth finally came through today! We’ll have to start brushing her teeth (tooth) from now –*sigh*.
She also babbles a lot, mostly “da-da” sounds but no “ma-ma” yet.
Drooling
And I still need to enrol her in a daycare, yikes! Everyone keeps telling me about the long waiting lists and I know I should’ve looked into this months ago but that’s me, the procrastinator. Reminds me I still need to finish off some work I’m doing for my “old” work – hmmm, I can never phrase that right. It’s work I’m doing for the company that I’m currently taking maternity leave from… does that make sense? Anyway, I’ll need to finish it tonight so I can go in and test things before Friday. Fun times with MS Word and VBA.
Abby Update at 24 Weeks
Abby’s on a roll! Yep, she rolls and rolls now, and if I leave her for a wee while I find that she’s migrated across the rug and trying to eat something like her baby bouncer. We have to be careful now about leaving things within her reach. So far I’ve caught her sucking on the laptop cord and playing with the baby wipes.
Abby loves solids. We’ve been making frozen cubes of puree for her, and she has had apple, pear, kumara, courgette, avocado, banana and carrot. Kumara and carrot together tastes a bit like pumpkin soup – I quite like it myself. She has 3-4 meals a day. At the moment they’re small meals (2-3 tablespoons) but we’re going to try bigger meals and cut down to three a day, as Plunket suggested.
Today was her five-month Plunket visit and we found out that she’s a really tall baby. She’s 71.5cm which is way above the 97th percentile. What’s crazier is that she’s almost half my height!
She also got her first toothbrush today, so now just to get some teeth.
Other developments over the last four weeks:
- She’s drooling a lot more and the bumps on her gums look like teeth are going to come through soon
- She finally found her feet a few weeks ago, and loves sucking on her toes
- She babbles and ‘talks’ lots making sounds liks ‘bababa’ and ‘wawawa’
- She’s starting to push up when she’s on her tummy
- She has three naps a day, sometimes two hours long, sometimes only one, but at least we get some freedom at regular periods
- She’s interested in Fez and tries to grab him whenever he’s close by
- She loves playing with toys (and watching TV but shhh), and new things excite her
Rolling on the rug
Eggshell Green shop
Designs on Threadless Tees
Previously on Eggshell Green
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