it's official!...

Abby can well and truly walk now. So funny that it just happened all of a sudden, yesterday she was still just walking a few steps every so often and this morning she just got up and walked across the living room and hasn't stopped since. I'm so happy and excited about this new stage in her life but also a little sad to think she is not a crawling baby anymore, is she still a baby even? Is she a toddler? GASP! I'm definetly enjoying the fact that we can take her to do more things now and she is really enjoying them. We went to BunnyLand the other day, not the Bunny Ranch which is what I keep calling it for some reason (freudian slip?), at Butler's Orchard. I just have to say I love that place, it's so cute and I can't wait to take Abby to pick strawberries in the summer-I used to do that when I was little and it was one of my favourite things to do. Bunnyland was so fun, we met Russ, Leah, and Edaena there; Abby rode a pony who's name was Scooby Doo. I was a little afraid that she would be scared and cry but she LOVED it and just giggled and smiled the whole time. After that we saw baby animals and took lots of great photos for memories. Edaena is getting so big, @ almost 5 months she is so cute and starting to laugh and smile. Abby was smitten with her when we came back to the house and couldn't resist kissing her little baby foot. Abby is very into kissing things at the moment, Max is covered in kisses all day long and she even kissed a boy at Little Gym the other (look out Nicholas!) it's just so adorable I love that she is getting so huggy and snuggly now. After being with a young baby it really made me realize how much easier it is to have an older baby, she doesn't cry as much as she did when she was 4 months, she can eat solid food and not have to nurse every 2 hours, also if I did have to nurse her it would be so much easier as Abby and I are nursing pros now as we have demonstrated by nursing various places including the bank. Still even after all that annoying little teeny baby stuff I still REALLY want to have another one, it's so worth it and do not want Abby to grow up an only child.
I had a wonderful dinner "date" with Kari at PF Changs, o my it was delish! I think it is entirely possible that Kari and I will never ever run out of things to talk about. Ever. I just love her. Then I went home and Edgar had taken Abby to Mircro Center (poor child) and to the party store to get a new balloon because she loves them so, awe what a nice Daddy! Sadly, Abby is afraid of the helium tanks sssssing noise and pitched a fit so she will have to wait until I take her to safeway next week to get one.
Finally---I got new curtains!!!! I'm in shock that I have actually got CURTAINS, I feel like I'm dreaming I have wanted to get rid of those crappy blinds for so many years now and now they are gone. le sigh...I am a happy mummy today.

walkie pants

Abby has walked! Not a great distance I might add but she has walked to me about 10 times now, she is getting better and more confident. It's so cute!
The weather lately has been making me melancholy, I hate rainy days. Being a stay at home mom now a rainy day=cabin fever/babywatchingtoomuchtvbecausemommyisoutofideas. Today to beat the rain Abby and I took a little field trip to Petsmart to look at fishies and whatever else we could see. Abby adored the birds and screeched her little lungs out when she saw them, the poor things were all desperately trying to get to the back of the cage away from the huge banshee in their faces. Then we looked at kitties and Abby and I decided that we need one and it's name needs to be Penny, so screw Daddy and his silly ole allergies. I wish we could really get one, but I fear Max would tear it limb from limb. We then traveled to Harris Teeter, we have one now and I've never been in one so we went. Oh My!-I love it. How sad am I that I am so excited over a new grocery store? Am I officially old now? Harris Teeter is the cleanest grocery store I think I've ever seen and it's just cozy. I will be going more often.
I got an email from my stepmother today. I sent them pictures of Abby from her birthday party looking all cute a week ago and got no response so I wrote again to see if they received the email. The response I got was that, yes they got the pics, my dad was rushed to hospital in pain, they did tests, all is fine, hope all is well with you! uh...what? Thanks for a phone call or something!!! I think one day I will get an email from her that says, "by the way...your dad died 2 weeks ago and we had the funeral." I have a strained relationship with my father (he never calls me on birthdays, xmas, ever, he never helped my mom out w/ money to support me, he is just a sorry excuse for a father all the around) but I really thought that things would be different when Abby was born. My stepmother has grandchildren that my dad considers to be his too, which is fine, every time I talk to him on the phone all he can do is talk about these kids, when I had a miscarriage and he called me a week later all he could do was talk about how the little girl was turning 2 and he couldn't believe it was a year ago they were at the hospital when she was born (I know...what a fabulous thing to say in my hour of grief) so I thought that he would be into Abby. I should have known better than to think my stepmother would allow that, she has decreed that they will never be leaving Great Britain again and I'm sure has set financial restrictions on what my father can spend on Abby like she did when I was 10 and my dad wasn't allowed to spend any more money on me for Xmas than they did on her kids who were in their 20's. No phone call on Abby's birthday, no present, no phone call since Xmas actually, it's disgusting. He disgusts me. She disgusts me. They do not deserve to ever be in the presence of Abby or have her smile at them or hug them. I had to get that off my chest Internet, I feel a bit better now.

mush

Thought I would stick this photo in here since I forgot to add one in the last post about her birthday. Poor thing she was so sick for her party, takes after me. I have a habit of getting incredibly sick right around special occasions. Abby had her 12 mo nth check up and everything was fine, she had shots (boo hiss!) and was throughly pissed off. Temper tantrums seem to be happening kind of a lot the last couple of days...not sure how I'm supposed to deal w/ them right now. I can't exactly discipline her, I usually just let her thrash around and get it all out or nursing has helped on a few occasions. Anywho...I love Abby's doctor, she is the sweetest lady and I've never met anyone more suited to their job in my life. She is so reassuring and calm, we saw her for Abby's first appointment ever and of course I was a mess. Abby was loosing weight, nursing wasn't going great, she had some orange pee (totally normal apparently) and all in all I was one big tense muscle. Dr Wonderful made me feel so much better and really helped me to come back down to earth and realize I wasn't totally screwing up and Abby would be fine. So at the 12month appointment the doctor told me I have to stop nursing Abby at night. uhhhhh....what? I'm going to have to file that in the same drawer as "getting her to sleep in her crib".

I have a Mommy confession to make: I forgot to brush my teeth today and I have just never got around to doing it yet. I promise I will before I go to bed, especially since I just ate a yummy ice cream.

1 year...

So Abby is 1 now. We celebrated her birthday yesterday, and saturday, and the saturday before that, yea I know overkill but we were excited ok! Life with Abby has been a little trying lately, she has had an ear infection, teething, and some kind of personality change that is not cool at all. I think someone came and switched babies on me when I wasn't looking because gone is my little happy go lucky, good eater, no tantrum girl instead I have a girl who gets mad if she is in her high chair for more than 5 minutes, looses her mind if she can't pick something up or move it, and cries. ALL THE TIME. So this past week has been a bad one, I'll admit yes I have lost my temper and yelled at her. There I said it. I'm not proud of it but there you go. I have also wanted to get in my car and drive away, far away and leave her with her father for a few days, hey a girl can dream right?
I have decided I'm going to use this blog now not just to document Abby's milestones and cute little stories but to get stuff off my chest and to just talk about motherhood in general. First off I would like to say IT'S HARD. Really hard, much harder than I thought it would be, there is no break it's 24/7. I knew this before I had a baby but I guess I just didn't KNOW it. If I say this to my husband he thinks that I don't want to be a stay at home mom anymore or don't love being a mother, sigh...men. I love being a mom and I love staying home with her it's just that it is the most I have ever worked in my life. On my busiest day at work I never worked this hard. I can't believe I have been doing it for a whole year, I also can't believe I have been nursing for a whole year. If you could have seen me when I started breastfeeding, I sucked at it. Abby sucked at it (or not as the case may be) we were a mess. I wanted to quit so freaking bad, I hated my husband for not letting me quit and went off on multiple tirades about how it is not his body but mine and blah blah "I am woman hear me" etc...we saw a lactation consultant and it got so much better after that. So now a year later I'm not planning on stopping until she is ready, UNLESS she is not ready by the time she is 2, then we will be having a talk.

true love

11 months tomorrow!! I can not believe it, this year has passed me by at warp speed. I am feeling a little melancholy about Abby turning 1 for some reason. I love watching her change and meet new milestones everyday but it is bittersweet since she isn't a "baby" anymore. Now I understand how my mom must feel now that I am going to be 32 this year, argh...I guess the grass is always greener because when she was a teeny baby I was so nervous about everything I was wishing she was older. I can't win. We are starting to plan her birthday party, well...parties. We are having a family/friends party at our hour and a play date joint party w/ Nicholas Abby's friend at a local rec center. I feel like I have alot to do to plan for both of them and I need to get a move on. I am going to be on the look out for some cute, fun things for 1 yr olds to do so if anyone has any ideas, please share.
This week Abby has been just learning things out the wazoo. Clapping is one thing she has started doing, I'm so glad as I have been waiting for her to clap for ages! Her little hands clap so daintily it's just as precious as can be. The last couple of weeks she has also started to be able to stand by herself for quite long periods of time without falling, once she even stood up without holding onto anything! I wasn't quite sure what to do at first as I was waiting for her to fall over but she just stood there, both little feet planted firmly on the ground, as if she had been doing it for years.
I have to say I have never been more in love with a human being than I am with my Abigail. I love my Mom and my husband obviously, but this is totally different...it's almost divine, I would do anything for her. I would climb Everest for her, I would walk through fire for her. I would make a complete fool of myself for her, and I do so on a regular basis, just to hear her beautiful laugh and see her smile.

Germfest 2009

What a fun filled 2 weeks it's been! First there was the stomach bug, then teething, next a fabulous cold, and last but not least double ear infections. The stomach bug was just punishment I think for Edgar and I going out on a date w/o Abby. My Mom was watching Abby, all was well. We came home and were informed Abby had been sick twice...weird. I fed her and put her into bed, that was my first mistake, then I heard it on the monitor. Puking! poor baby girl! I ran into her and she was covered, luckily she didn't eat dinner and had pretty much just threw up the breast milk from earlier. This continued until she had nothing left in her little tummy and she went to sleep. I have to say now that being puked on by my child does not phase me in the least, I think I had a pukey shirt on for a few hours before I realized I should probably change it. The remnants of this was a week of diarrhea (aren't you glad I'm telling you all this Internet?) which could last for 2 weeks per the doctor! Things were going well and then a cold, w/ a nasty chesty cough to go w/ it. Once the cold started to go away Abby got really upset one night and couldn't stop crying and hitting her ears. uh oh. I took her in a voila!-double ear infections. So we are on 10 days of antibiotics, which are giving her diarrhea AGAIN, all in all Abby is being such a good little patient and loves her bright pink medicine. I hope when she is older she will forgive me for taking pictures of her when she is sick but she just looked so darn cute I couldn't resist. I'm hoping this week we make it to Little Gym, since the last 2 classes we have missed. I have asked friends of mine who have older kids if this is how it is every winter, I was informed, yep. sigh...

Snow!

Well Internet, it's that time of year again, it snowed. For me snow is great while it's snowing and then for the rest of the day or next day but then when it gets dirty I want no more to do with it. Abby got to experience her first snow and as you can see by the photo she wasn't all that impressed. We invited Kelly and her son and Abby's buddy Nicholas over to enjoy the snow with us. The babies were out in the snow for about 5 minutes, which is less time than it took me to get Abby's snow suit on, and they sat there and looked annoyed at why they could barely move. Then Abby wiped snow in Nicholas's face and it was time to go in. I'm sure next year will be so much more fun, I can't wait to make a snow man with her! Little Gym started up again last week and I'm so glad! I really missed having somewhere to go once a week to socialize, is that pathetic? All of our old friends were there and some new ones as well, Abby crawled all over the gym-last time we were there she hadn't quite mastered crawling yet so she has lots of freedom there to roam around. Abby has added a new trick to her repertoire this week, "So Big!" is when I ask her, "How big is Abby?" and then she and I hold our arms out very wide and I say, "sooooo biiiiiiig!" then you just change "Abby" to "Max" or "Daddy" etc...it's a very fun game!
The other day I was holding Abby and she started to scratch my chest, I told her, "no" and then she laughed at me, I told her no again but in a firmer voice and she cracked up! At this point Edgar and I had to laugh because it was funny and at this point wasn't hurting too bad, then she kept on doing it and I kept saying no, I pretended to cry and made sad faces well that was hilarious to her! After all was said and done my chest looked like I had been attacked by a kitten and I was perplexed by what to do in the future when this happens. Any suggestions will be appreciated! I'm just going to keep on saying no and stopping her from doing whatever she is doing and hopefully once she understands what the word means she will get it and not think it's so funny. I will not slap her hand away or spank her, I've decided that I really don't want to do that. I would like to use time outs instead, I know I'm naive since Abby is my only child right now so we will see if I feel differently in a year or so once the "terrible twos" hit. I have to go now and finish watching "Thelma and Louise", I love that movie.