Friday, September 21, 2012

Another Homage to Eight Months

I'm sure that I'm just over-thinking things, but I debated for awhile about what to call this post. For the past few Flashback Fridays, I've simply been using the name of the corresponding Facebook/Flickr album (I have one for each month of Abby's first year of life, except the twelfth month) as a title for that week's post. However, the title of the album for her ninth month is Everybody's Favorite Eight Month Old. I thought it cute and fitting at the time, since she is not only the first grandchild on both sides, but also the first great-grandchild on four sides. So, of course she was the "favorite"-she was the only.

However, now that Abby has both a younger cousin and a younger sibling, it seems wrong to even jokingly refer to her as the favorite, so I elected to use a different title for this week's post. I think it works, since just two nights ago I was writing about Michael's eight-month milestone, and tonight I'm reminiscing about Abby's.

Interestingly, I did not take any official "month" pictures in July of 2011. Well, not posed ones, anyway. I don't particularly remember my reasoning, but imagine that it came down to a) the fact that I was eight weeks pregnant with Michael at the time, and not feeling too great the vast majority of the time and b) on the morning of her eight month anniversary, I caught Abby doing something really cute, and thought it would be a fresh take on her "month" pictures to capture candid shots of her in the midst of it, rather than posed ones on the chair.

Her novel bit of cuteness was turning over her play mat on its side, and creating a little tent reminiscent of a homemade fort. Here are my favorites of the set:








And, one last picture from that day: Abby's first introduction to spinach.


Can you tell that she loved it?

A couple of days later, because I can never resist it when there's a "little baby in a big bed," I took this picture of Abby napping.


Normally, her naps took place in her crib, so while I don't remember the details of that particular day, I am quite sure that it involved some kind of nap time drama. It was on the days that she put up the biggest fights that I would give in and take her into the bed with me, where I could lie with her until she fell asleep, rather than wrestling with her in my arms or trying to soothe her by leaning over the crib bars. Both of the latter strategies became increasingly impossible for me to carry out as my pregnancy progressed. I'm not sure how she ended up on a pillow- I always moved those out of the way, but possibly, I was too tired that day- but, rest assured, I kept a close eye on my sleeping beauty as she slumbered away.

And here are some pictures from July 21st, the only other day that I pulled out my camera that month. My early pregnancy with Michael was tough on me; the exhaustion and nausea were, at times, pretty crippling.

This was Abby's first interaction with Mets Bear. We'd had him lying around the apartment for awhile, but for some reason, it hadn't occurred to us to give him to her until that day.


 They were fast friends.




Just as her brother is doing now, Abby began spending much of the month assuming the crawl position, and rocking back and forth from it. On this particular day, she gave me several opportunities to take some pictures of her progress.

Initially, she wasn't particularly motivated.


She pulled herself up...


...and decided that really, she preferred the floor.


A few minutes later, she was at it again, but that attempt ended in frustrated tears.


At this point, I turned her attention, instead, to the sofa, as I often did when she began to straighten her legs, rather than bending her knees. After all, that particular leg motion was necessary for pulling up, but wasn't going to get her anywhere with crawling.




She needed my help to get there, but once she was up- she was up.  And proud to be so.


And her hard work paid off, in the end. According to my shoddy records (for which I owe all of my thanks to old Facebook statuses that I can look up with ease on my timeline), just five days later she was crawling around the room. It was a drag-along-the-floor, army crawl-type movement that put me in mind of an inchworm losing a battle to gravity, but it did the job.

Not too long after, she was cruising, as well.  But that is a story for another week, and a different month.