Facts about Abigail

Abigail is 1 year old and her birthday is August 31st. She was born at 11:59 p.m., one minute before midnight and I was in labor with her for about 36 hours. Sounds terrible, but I actually got to sleep for about six hours while in labor on the night before she was born...

She has blue eyes and curly light blonde hair. She is a bit chubbier than her sister was, (neither of my girls are what anybody would really call chubby or big, they're just both tall. Deborah was always in the 80th-95th percentile for height and Abigail is hanging around the 80th, which means only 20 out of about 100 kids are taller than her) and is already wearing 18 months clothes because her tummy sticks out of the 12 months clothes. She has an infectious belly laugh and loves to shake her head back and forth, like she's saying "no, no, no, no, no", which makes us all laugh at her. She puts her head on the floor with her bottom up in the air while standing on her toes, which also makes us laugh at her. She has a very silly streak and loves to repeat over and over things that make us laugh.

Abigail sings to herself and has since she was about a month old. If I didn't sing a lullaby to her while rocking her, she would start humming a one or two note song. My mom started using "Away in a Manger" as her night-time song, and this one is still the guaranteed-she'll-go-to-sleep song. She wakes up very slowly and kind of talks/sings to herself quietly in the morning. She likes to be cuddled for about 10 minutes when I take her out of her crib, and she often brings her puppy or bear out of bed with her and hugs it for awhile.

If she could get away with it, she would NEVER sleep, and she probably only needs 10-12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour day, which is unusual, VERY hard to deal with & very frustrating/wearing/wearying. We actually are working with our doctor to give her a low dose of benadryl at night so that she goes to sleep a little earlier. She was going to sleep around 3 or 4 a.m., which was KILLING me. Now she goes to sleep around 11 p.m., and wakes up around 9:30. Her sister sleeps about 12+ hours and I had no idea what a blessing that was until Abigail was born...

Abigail is allergic to a whole host of stuff (oats, milk, soy, apples, potatoes, sweet potatoes), and we're still discovering new food allergies. Her most frustrating allergy is to diaper wipes. What this means is that we either use paper towels or wash out the diaper wipes you buy in the store. (probably more detail than you wanted) She likes sucking on the outside of my sister's cold cans of Diet Coke, and sometimes I'll pull one out of the refrigerator and let her play with it.

Abigail is very persistent, stubborn and determined like her sister. We will keep pulling her out of some kind of trouble and trying to distract her, but she will return and return and return to the same thing that got her in trouble. (Again, I have to say we're not exactly sure where this character trait is coming from.... Both of her parents are very easy-going, laid-back type people....)

She loves books and will sit and read on her own, but really prefers being read to by her mama or Grammy. We have several developmentally appropriate toys for her, but she pretty much always prefers to play with what her big sister's got... My mom will give her catalogs that come in the mail, 'cuz she loves to rip them up (I'm not sure this is such a great habit for her, but oh, well...)

Abigail has a little bit more than 10 words: Mama, No-no, Uh-oh, Hi, up, Mine, nose, stars (Gerber snack food), Una (my cat Luna), Nana (my sisters cat Mnemosene, called Nene). I think she's calling Jake Dada, and I think she's calling my mom Nana, but these are infrequent and fairly unvarified. She knows a lot more words than she can actually say, though.

She is a climber and has freaked us out more than once with her prowess. We've caught her up in the window sill (above the couch), and standing on the arms of the couch or chair in the living room or high up on the gates barring the stairs...