She loves frozen peas and calls them “cold pea”. When they’re cooked they become “warm cold pea”. Makes sense I suppose.

"Doll, teeth!"

The other day she grabbed her doll and a little monkey was tangled in the doll’s hair. She said “ooh ooh ah ah, doll hair”. She can’t say monkey yet – she’s only started naming animals instead of just their sounds. Her nursery rhymes book is now her “baa baa sheep” book.

She can say some things but not others. She can say “ice” and “cream”, and says “cream, bum” when I’m changing her nappy, but she can’t say “ice cream” – it comes out as “ice core” or “i core”.

When we sniff her suspiciously she says “No poo”, even if there is because she hates nappy changes.

After coming home from the park one day she stares out the window all sad-like and says “No more slide. No more swing.” So sad!

Sometimes Abby doesn't need words to whine

As we left the doctors’,  Abby had to say goodbye not only to the doctor, but also the chair, and the clock (which was actually the scales).

When I make her stop watching Hi-5, she says “bye bye Hi-5″ and even waves to the TV. When she wants to watch it again she fetches the remote and says “mote” as she shoves it in my direction. When she would rather watch it on my computer instead of the TV, she says “Hi-5 puter”, and attempts to fetch my laptop for me.

She puts my knickers around her like a necklace and says “unnie”. I tell her that the big undies are daddy’s, and she picks up another of mine and says “big”. Thanks honey.

It’s dangerous when kids start saying sentences. I know how literal and awfully honest kids can be – Abby is going to be a great source of embarrassment very soon!

Abby is able to recognise half the alphabet and a couple numbers now. She doesn’t say all of them properly but we know what she means.

(She learnt “Goo-goo Kay” from my Special K cereal…)

It’s impressive how easily she picks up new things and what she can process. She is able to recognise animals drawn in many different styles even though she’s never seen some of them in real life.

Abby can also name some colours now and will say things like “Car, yellow”.

She’s a real little talker. Take her anywhere and she’ll point and yell out things she knows like “Bird!”, or “Door!”, or “Cake!” Taking her to the bakery today was amusing!

Dressed like a pretty detective

We’ve reached a new milestone – Abby is sleeping in a “big girl” bed. She sleeps in it fine, but it’s getting her to stay in her room that’s a challenge now. She knows how to open her door and likes to come out and say “Hi Daddy”, or “Kiss?”, or something else that’s very cute but not helpful in getting her to stay in bed!

Wearing daddy's shoes because she can

Abby is beginning to like dressing up. She will try to wear clothes, jewellery, bags and shoes. With the exception of her gumboots, she can only put on adult shoes by herself. That’s a good start, but I wish it was nappies that she could change herself into – you should see her pooey nappies now, phwoar!

Abby with her baby brother

Her vocab is forever extending. I’m losing track of all the words she knows because she picks up new ones so easily. She can recognise a lot of the things in her picture book and can understand many everyday things like “nappy change”, “bath time”, “bed time”, “pull your pants up” – lol.

She’s slowly learning the alphabet and numbers. She can recognise and say “A” (and sometimes will say “B” afterwards) and can say “2″ when you say “1″ but that’s about it. Still pretty good for a 17-month old.

Snuggly robe

Abby is growing up so fast. She’s becoming a real little girl. She loves to pretend to put on moisturiser, nail polish and lipstick, but still won’t keep her hair in pigtails or wear any hair accessories. It’s a shame because she looks so pretty with her hair done – oh well, we’ll have to settle for the 60s mop look instead – much more practical for a busy little monkey!

My little girl

She got tired of pushing her trolley

Abby can understand when we say “nappy change”. She will go and lay down her change mat and get a nappy (or four) ready for us, but then she’ll run away and delay the change for as long as possible. She also understands that when it’s time for dad to brush her teeth at night, then it’s time to say goodnight to mummy and she’ll come and give me a kiss and a goodbye wave.

She loves to share food now and will offer mummy or daddy some of what she’s having. Sometimes she just teases and takes it back though! If I give her a cracker, she says “Mummy!”, expecting me to have one too.

Abby loves her baths

We can ask her to do things for us like put her bottle on the table, take something to mummy or daddy, pick something up off the floor, and put something back where she found it. Her latest trick is asking for a tissue so she wipe her mouth and hands with, or the couch/table if she’s spilt something. She even drips milk on purpose so she can have something to wipe! Maybe she’ll be a great help when her brother arrives (about a week to go!!). Most likely she’ll just poke him and try and feed him dogfood.

Wondering if her Mr Potatohead limbs are cooked yet

Weeeee

I also got her a second-hand doll’s cradle and stroller. She’s having fun pushing her soft toys (her “baby”) around in the stroller and even knows how to steer it. I’ve taught her to rock the cradle, but she’s more interested in trying to climb inside.

If you haven’t got the hint by now, I’m trying to set Abby up to entertain herself so that hopefully she won’t need all my attention once her little brother arrives. She seems to be pretty good at playing by herself anyway but can be quite clingy some days (due to teething we think).

Abby peering at her dad mowing the lawn

Talking of teeth, she has 12 and we’re expecting another two at least. We still have to enrol her into a school dental program so she can go in for free checkups.

Abby’s new thing is swatting flies. She saw me do it and now attempts it herself. She calls flies “bah” or “wah” – not sure why though! She also now can say “Please” but you have to remind her and it comes out as “pee”. Oh, and she also says “pee pee” when she’s sitting on her potty. We’re not actually toilet training her yet, but we’ve noticed she likes to wee after a bath and have been trying to get her to do it on the potty. She has no clue what it’s for but likes to sit on it and say “pee pee” now.

She’s understanding lots more now, like “Lie down” (for a nappy change), “Sit down”, “Put it back”, “Put it on the table”, “Give to daddy/mummy”, “Get your shoes”, among other things.

To add to her existing vocabularly, Abby can also say the following:

• Bee
• Bowl
• Pea
• Pee pee
• Pee (please)
• Wow-wa (flower)
• Ow
• Owl (the bird but it just sounds like “ow”)
• Wo wo (woof woof)
• Choo choo (train)
• Vroom (car sound)
• Da ka (cracker)
• Juice
• Tissue
• Up – She really loves this one, using it to mean she wants to be picked up, or get out of her high chair, or wants us to open something.
• No no no no no! – Oh yes, she knows what she wants and what she definitely doesn’t want now.
• Om – She points to her mouth when she says this to indicate she’s hungry!

And you know what else? She finally acknowledges me as “mam mee” – actually pointing to me, or photos of me and knowing that I’m not “daddy”, a “na na” or a “wo wo”, which she has previously answered when asked who I was.

The kiddies watch dad watering the plants

She loves being outside. Usually she goes up and down the steps, walks along the path, runs in the grass, picks leaves and flowers, plays in Fez’s doghouse and throws the ball for him. She knows where the strawberries are and if she sees a red one she’ll want to pick it. She also thinks it’s super fun to randomly pick my chives and throw them off the deck.

The husband has taught her a new word – “beer”. She says it with such clarity. Whenever dad has a beer, Abby tries to grab it so we say “No, that’s daddy’s beer”, and now she knows what it is. Very cute.

This is how I help

One of her new favourite things is helping me with the laundry. When I’m hanging things on the clothes horse, she’s there at the bottom “helping”. It’s pretty much piling clothes all on the same rung, but oh well, keeps her happy. I’ve even resorted once to giving her some dry clothes to hang up to keep her occupied while I made dinner.

She really likes to imitate at the moment. She’s learnt to put “moisturiser” on purely by watching me. She can’t actually get into any of my jars and bottles (thankfully) but she pretends to shake stuff out and then rub or pat them on her body.

Like my hat? I do!

Abby has a thing for putting things on her head. It could be hats, or buckets, or underwear… and she normally says “Yeeha” when she does it. I think we’ve confused her because everytime she puts on her cowgirl hat we say “Yeeha” and I think she thinks that means “hat” now.

I like this hat too

Abby and Fez are getting along swimmingly. She likes to lie down and snuggle with him on his bed but Fez often runs away to avoid being squished. She also likes to try and feed Fez whatever she’s having – a sign of things to come with her baby brother!

Sniff my finger

Just chilling and watching some tv

The other day she managed to get her head stuck through the deck rails – in fact she was more off than on the deck and that scared the bejesus out of me. I couldn’t get her unstuck and back onto the deck, so ran around the other side and pulled her out from the high end. I’ve been saying we need to trellis our deck because I know her head still fits through the gaps. Might have to be a little project in the next couple of weeks.

Loving the slide

I try and take her to the park every few days. It’s nice for her to explore and use up some energy without being told off all the time! We really do need to make our house more child-proof, especially as she’s an expert climber now, and getting tall enough to reach things she couldn’t before.

Elbows on the table? How about legs?

Abby’s getting so good at feeding herself. She can manage almost her whole bowl of food or pottle of yoghurt by herself without making much mess. Quite often she doesn’t want us feeding her because she wants to do it herself. That’s fine by me!

Her favourite way to drink her milk or have a snack is sitting on her Abby Cadabby chair at the coffee table. God forbid if anyone else is sitting in her chair when she wants it! You will be pushed away.

She’s also a pro at riding her rocking horse now – complete with hat and a “Yeeha” at the end.

Unfortunately any time is play time and Abby still won’t stay in one place to get her nappy changed. Today she took off while I was trying to clean up a sticky poo, and then sat her dirty butt down on the rug. I picked her up to reveal a nice brown butt-shaped patch with some chunks, which Fez promptly ate – EWWWWW!

What? I wanted an apricot, from up here.

She’s into climbing at the moment. Her latest feat has been climbing on to a chair, then on to the kitchen table, and then on to the set of storage drawers that I had left on the table!! OMG.

Whatcha doing...?

Abby’s also learnt to open drawers and cupboards so anything without a safety lock on it and within reach is fair game. She’s taken dishes out of the cupboards, tried to eat flour, stolen my keys from my handbag and proceeded to use them on the front door… The rubbish bin is also a point of interest, and she’s almost thrown my necklace away while I wasn’t looking. She pretty much wants to see, touch, taste and test everything. Quite often she’ll walk around pointing and going “OoOOohHH. OoOOOOhH!” to say “What’s that? Can I see it? Have it? Eat it? Please?”.

She’s been giving us a lot of trouble in regards to sleep lately. It’s almost every night that she will wake up (at varying times) and not go back to sleep. We have to go through the routine of changing her nappy, giving her some milk, and rubbing Bonjela on her gums because we don’t know the exact reason why she’s waking. It may be because she’s teething (she has two new teeth and at least another two coming through), or her appetite’s increased, or she’s hot and having nightmares. I really hope this doesn’t continue for too long because it’s starting to feel like a permanent hangover from the lack of a good night’s sleep.

Apart from that, she’s still my curious, cheeky, chuckling girl.

Abby’s learnt some new words. Her vocab consists of:

• Baa baa (sheep sound)
• Mmmm (cow sound)
• Brrrr (horse sound)
• Berr (ball)
• Shoe
• Teeh (teeth)
• Daddy
• Mum mum
• Nah nah (banana, she even said the proper word once)
• Baby (I don’t think she knows what it means but she likes saying this)
• Abby – yes, she says her own name! So cute.
• Beh beh beh (strawberry)
• Nin nin (grandma taught her this Chinese slang word for ‘milk’)
• Yeeeha (Dad taught her this while she was on her rocking horse)
• e-ya-e-ya-e (Old Mac Donald had a farm, eieio)
• um (arm)

We managed to take Abby to the beach finally. My parents were here so I thought a trip to Days Bay would be nice as I hadn’t been there before. Abby wasn’t allowed to get down and dirty in the sand though (my parents disapprove of kids getting ‘dirty’, which makes it hard for Abby to play when they’re around), but at least she got to walk on the sand and eee over seagulls.

Looking at the water

Abby is a knowledge sponge. She will observe and copy. She has picked up in the last day or so that keys open doors, and has twice toddled all the way to the front door and tried to stick the house keys into the door knob. Noone taught her this, but Grandpa said that she was watching him while he unlocked the door the other day.

She has also figured out that the foot stool gives her access to higher things and has been carrying it around to the kitchen and back to the lounge to see what she can reach. Nothing is safe now!