Abby Funnies

• Abby has a new favorite game she likes to play. It's called "Walk up to Mommy with My Arms in the Air and Say 'Up!' and Then When Mommy Reaches for Me, Turn Around and Run Away Laughing." It's actually pretty funny.
• When she's laying in her crib trying to fall asleep, sometimes she'll look at her stuffed animals and start to name them and make their sound. The other night, after one of her crying fits, I all of a sudden hear her saying, "Kitty, Ow! Kitty, Ow!"
• She is starting to "sing." Her favorites to sing along to are Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider and Old McDonald. The Old McDonald is pretty funny...we play a game where she hands me her Little People animals and then I'll sing the song about the animal she gave me. So now she'll wave an animal around and start singing the tune with just the "Baa" sound. Hehehehehe...
• When Mickey Mouse Clubhouse comes on now, she'll stop what she's doing to watch the beginning and will look at me and say "Mickey!" when he comes on the screen. She also likes the Hotdog Dance at the end and will dance along, try to sing and puts her hands in the air when they do.
• She tries to blow kisses, but always forgets to finish it off. She just puts her hand to her mouth and makes the sound and then that's it. At least she tries.
• One of her favorite things to do is to look at pictures. She loves her "Abby's First Year" photo book and the little photo album that Grandmom made her with pictures from her birthday and Halloween. She has also taken to pulling my photo album of wedding pictures and the one with Val's wedding pictures off the shelf to look at. Her favorites though are the few pictures of Ryan and Isaac that I have..."Baby! Baby!" She loves those babies.
• She also loves to look at the pictures and videos stored in my camera. If I can sense a tantrum coming on, I can usually just pull the camera off of the shelf and she'll come running right over to watch. If she wants to let me know that she wants to look, she'll point to the camera and say "Abby!"
• She's still obsessed with the kitty cat. She loves nothing more than to try to cuddle the cat. The cat usually tolerates it up to a point, but then runs away. Abby will chase her as long as she can, but the cat is usually smart enough to hop a baby fence and get the heck out of Dodge. The cat would actually put up with it a lot longer if Abby didn't insist on getting up into her face and yelling "Kitty!" For some reason, the cat doesn't seem to like that.
• We also still loves books, books and more books. I read her several stories every night before bed. Lately she is getting very choosy about which books she wants me to read. If I don't have the right one, she'll take it out of my hands and drop it on the floor. I've taken to just leaning her over to the book table and letting her pick the one she wants. It's easier during the day when she'll just come up to us with a book in hand.
• She can name a lot of Sesame Street characters now. Some people might not see this as good, but I'm amused by it (I love Sesame Street). She says Abby (duh), Cookie, Elmo (although is comes out more like Belmo or Melmo) and Big Bird. She even said Grover the other day, although Super Grover annoys her. Especially when he shows up in the "Helping" episode of Elmo's World.
• Speaking of Elmo, she loves to try to cuddle her Elmo Alive doll. But then the cuddling will usually make him start to talk and that pisses her off. I really have to find her a cuddly Elmo doll that doesn't talk.
• When she's eating something that she particularly likes, she's starting to go "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..." Unfortunately, this usually happens when we let her have something sweet. Between Ed and me, it was inevitable that she was going to have a sweet tooth too.
• One of her new hobbies is "honking" our noses. I'm pretty sure she learned that at daycare. She really loves to honk both our noses at the same time. We'll keep making the honking sound until she lets go. She thinks it hysterical.
• She also loves bathtime. It's easy to get her to stay sitting down in the tub now. As soon as she starts to stand, I'll say, "Are you ready to get out?" She plops right back down to let me know that she is most definitely not ready to get out.