(I started this post a while ago, but I better get it finished before the title is no longer true! The girls will be 11 months old at the end of this week.)
Our little Abigail is still more pensive and cautious than her sister. It's been so fun to see their personalities develop (and retain traits we noticed right from the start!) as they grow older. Abby likes to observe people and situations--preferably from the safety of Mama or Daddy's arms--before jumping in and joining. She doesn't smile as readily as Lydia, but she's certainly a pleasant, happy, and smiley little girl around people she knows. She took a couple days to warm up to my dad when he came for Christmas, but once she decided she liked him, she preferred him to most of the rest of us!
In line with her more cautious nature, Abby took her first steps about a week and a half after Lydia--so just over 10 months old. She still doesn't launch across the room like Lydia does. Instead, she calculates the distance she intends to go and typically makes it from point A to point B with three or four steps. Seldom has she done as many as eight or ten. But she's gaining confidence! She does love to hang onto things and walk. She grabs hold of my legs, sticks her head between, and walks along with me wherever I go (usually impeding my cooking progress in the kitchen!). She likes to hang onto the back of the wagon outside and walk along with that. Earlier today Josiah loaded the wagon with all his outdoor worldly goods ("suitcases") and pulled it from his fort under one tree to his "house" (digging hole) under another. Abby loved traipsing around with him by hanging onto the back! I had to slow him down from time to time, but he did pretty well with this arrangement.
Our little Abigail is still more pensive and cautious than her sister. It's been so fun to see their personalities develop (and retain traits we noticed right from the start!) as they grow older. Abby likes to observe people and situations--preferably from the safety of Mama or Daddy's arms--before jumping in and joining. She doesn't smile as readily as Lydia, but she's certainly a pleasant, happy, and smiley little girl around people she knows. She took a couple days to warm up to my dad when he came for Christmas, but once she decided she liked him, she preferred him to most of the rest of us!
In line with her more cautious nature, Abby took her first steps about a week and a half after Lydia--so just over 10 months old. She still doesn't launch across the room like Lydia does. Instead, she calculates the distance she intends to go and typically makes it from point A to point B with three or four steps. Seldom has she done as many as eight or ten. But she's gaining confidence! She does love to hang onto things and walk. She grabs hold of my legs, sticks her head between, and walks along with me wherever I go (usually impeding my cooking progress in the kitchen!). She likes to hang onto the back of the wagon outside and walk along with that. Earlier today Josiah loaded the wagon with all his outdoor worldly goods ("suitcases") and pulled it from his fort under one tree to his "house" (digging hole) under another. Abby loved traipsing around with him by hanging onto the back! I had to slow him down from time to time, but he did pretty well with this arrangement.
Abby is ahead of Lydia in the teeth department. Both girls have two incisors on the bottom, but Abby has her four front teeth on top coming in. No sign of Lydia's yet!
Both girls like music and bounce to a beat when I sing or turn on a CD. But Abby seems to be more attuned to particular tones and patterns of sounds. She often tries to imitate me when I sing two notes in an interval (usually a third or a fifth), and she hears and imitates the two notes, usually in the high-to-low or low-to-high pattern I did. She seems to make a wider variety of babbling sounds than Lydia, too--her babbling sounds more like an imitation of talking as she pairs letters in her sweet little voice. Here, too, she obviously seeks to imitate us: often when I say a short sentence, ask her a question, or ask her to say something, she clearly tries to replicate the sounds. Sometimes she gets pretty close--at least pretty close for a 10-month-old baby!
Abby isn't always quiet. She loves to growl back and forth with anyone, and her high-pitched talking can get pretty insistent sometimes! She says "Dada" for Daddy and sometimes "Mamamama" for me. She waves "hi" and "bye" and says "hi" quite well (occasionally she'll say "bye"). She signs "all done" and attempts the sign for "more" and "please." She understands lots of what I say and tends to push the limits less than her sister (at least for now).
Still our cuddle-bug and thumb-sucker, Abby is also still more than a pound lighter than Lydia--so she seems more the baby, even though she's only nine minutes younger than her big sister. Lydia mostly saves thumb-sucking for bedtime (or when she's getting tired), but Abby resorts to it often throughout the day--when assessing a new situation, sizing up a new person, cuddling with Mama after nap, pensively observing her siblings, perhaps feeling a bit bored, etc. That left thumb gets a lot of work!
Abby loves to be outside, just like her sister and brother. But she's more content than Lydia to stay in one spot and check out all the nearby leaves or watch Josiah. She still tries to eat grass and leaves occasionally, but she doesn't transgress as much as Lydia in this area. She's more interested in finding, holding, and looking at the leaves and other vegetation outdoors.
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