A Post About Abby

I realized I have been neglecting to blog about Abby...and pretty much everything recently. Life gets busy. You know all the excuses, but today you get to catch up on the littlest member of our family as she nears the 6 month mark.

Abby is such a sweet, easy-going baby. Brett jokes that we can set her somewhere and as long as we talk or smile at her every couple of minutes she's set. And it's true most of the time! She loves to be up with us in her high chair or standing in the Exer-Saucer. But she'll also be content to play under her crib gym or on the floor with a toy. She loves anything she can chew on and anything that crinkles. I let her get a piece of tissue paper a couple of weeks ago and she LOVED it. I vowed to never do it again, however, because I was pulling gooey bits of tissue paper out of her mouth for 10 minutes afterward.

She is most definitely teething and chews hard on EVERYTHING. I'm kind of sad that we don't have anything to show for her couple of months' worth of hard work and grumpiness. Oh, well, the teeth will come (and keep coming for SO long)!

I started Abby on solid foods right at 4 months because I felt like she was ready (and, let's be honest, I was hoping she'd sleep longer at night). She started out like any other baby with the spitting out and having to learn how to swallow, but she was STILL having issues opening her mouth and eating after a full month of eating. Then, all of a sudden, early in November something clicked and she became the best eater ever! She opens her mouth wide and swallows the whole bite. She enjoys: applesauce, pears, peaches, and bananas. I've been blending up a bunch of the fruits with the blender and then freezing the puree in ice cube trays and then defrosting a couple at a time. It's saved a lot of money since we don't have to buy baby food. I am trying to introduce vegetables again now that she's gotten good at eating in general. She doesn't like sweet potatoes, but I'll keep trying! I think she is allergic to peas because she got a super bad diaper rash right after she had them the first time and then it kept coming and going. I realized the rice rusks I was giving her had peas in them. Now that she's not getting any peas, her skin looks much better.

(Picture by Emmy)

Abby was an AWESOME sleeper from birth which was a huge blessing. When she hit 5 months, she started waking up more and more often. It was probably because of the awful diaper rash, but she was in a bad habit even after that cleared up. When I had a couple of nights waking up every two hours, I finally got tough enough to attempt "Baby Boot Camp" and let her cry it out at night. She was even an easy baby when it came to that! She would cry hard for 20 seconds and then just whimper until she fell asleep. She's doing much better now, and she only wakes up twice in 12 hours (1:30 and 4:30-ish). That is nice! I'd love to get back to only getting up once a night, but twice in a million times better than 6 times!!!Emmy nursed Ammon while I nursed Abby and then wrapped him up to match Abby. Too cute with the matching chubby cheeks! :)

When I took Abby to the doctor for her horrible diaper rash, he told me that the rash that was spreading all over her body was actually eczema aggravated from me bathing her more often (to get rid of the diaper rash) and the cold weather. So now I am only bathing her twice a week and putting on Lubriderm lotion morning and night as well as putting hydrocortizone cream on any really red patches. She is doing much better now, but she still has a rash somewhere on her body all the time. I'm sure it's not the most comfortable thing, but she seems to be okay.

Abby is SO close to rolling from back to front. She has been rolling to her side for a few weeks now and rolled all the way over for the first time last night. However, she had a little help since she was on a folded up towel and the difference between that and the ground was enough to help her get over that darn arm. So we aren't counting it officially. Pretty soon she will get over the mountain her arm creates and reach even more things. And then she'll figure out she can roll and roll and get even farther away. And then we will be in big trouble!!!

Emmy wants to type:
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Abby is also learning to sit up. I didn't start practicing with her until a week ago when I read in Emmy's baby book that she started sitting up at 6 months. I didn't realize Abby was reaching that stage yet! So I tried her sitting, and she is pretty darn good at it! Apparently all the practicing we parents do with the kids isn't really all that important. :)
And things are going very well between Emmy and Abby. Emmy continues to adore Abby and asks about her first thing in the morning if she's not awake. (Generally that's because Abby's already been up for an hour and is back down for a nap by the time my late-riser gets up.) And Abby adores Emmy, too. She loves to watch her and smiles at her all the time. I remember promising Emmy a few months ago that the day would come that Abby would smile at her often. And now that is so true! We used to have to work so hard to win those darling grins, and now she shares them all the time!

I know I say it all the time, but I really do love being Mommy to these two adorable girls! I can't believe how quickly they are growing up, but they do continue to get more and more fun!!!