Miss Mustache

In case you have not seen the awesomeness, here are some picks of us having some fun with mustaches: 

This is FOOD?!

Abby's last check up, the doctor also let us know that we could start trying solid foods.  I believe his words were, "She's obviously not in need of supplemental nutrition and I doubt she's hungry at night time, so you don't need to use it as an additional meal just yet."  In other words, "Your baby's so fat, the back of her neck looks like a pack of hot dogs."  Well despite the snaps from our resident comedian, we picked a day to mix up some rice cereal and breast milk to see if Abby would dig the solids.  Here she is taking her first bite:

(I tried loading a video but blogger.com seems to always have an error)

And here she is shortly after tossing her first bowl of food across the dining room:

You can see Roxy licking up the remnants on the floor behind her and some spots reaching all the way back to my sandals.  It was actually my fault for leaving it on her highchair tray within her reach.  She did OK eating, but she was not the natural eater that we thought she would be given her appetite.  Eli had a pretty natural instinct to bite, chew and swallow, but Abby just tends to gnaw on the spoon.  Maybe she will get better with practice.

Our Dextrous Daughter

Abby had her 4 month check up 2 weeks and we were in no way surprised to hear that she was around the 90th percentile for height, weight, and head size.  Our little girl is actually not so little, but at least she's proportionate!  Since then, Abby has stretched out a little and GREATLY improved her dexterity.  With her legs a little longer and little less chunky, she can now fold herself up and grab her feet.  She loves it!

With greater dexterity comes greater exploration and Abby has been grabbing at everything within her reach, be it toys, couch pillows, or hair.  She will roll the object around in her hands or yank and pull at it as she tries to figure out what exactly it is, but everything usually ends up getting thrown across the room in a spastic fling of her arms.  The cutest thing about her reach and grab is that her interaction with Eli has greatly improved as well.  A few nights ago, Eli was having a rough night and I said Abby wanted to give him a hug to make him feel better. When I held Abby up to him she actually grabbed onto him, and he tightly hugged her back.  Tonight she was pulling on his hair and he just giggled at her thinking she was such a silly girl.  I have a feeling that pretty soon they will be doing puzzles together on the floor and dancing around the house hand-in-hand.

The Elusive Laugh

Now that Abby can see more than 2 ft in front of her and is becoming more aware of the amazing world around her, she is finding hilarious joy in every interaction she has with the people she meets.  Even though she can now recognize faces and is, of course, partial to her mama and daddy, she will greet everyone with a smile.  Her smiles are the brightest, friendliest and most beautiful smiles since . . . well . . . since Eli's!  About a month ago, Abby amped up her smiles and squawks of joy into full on laughs.  Unfortunately, she has been a little finicky with her laughs and it has been tough to catch on camera.  She will giggle away, but as soon as she sees the camera she immediately stops and becomes entranced with the camera instead.  A few days ago I was able to sneak up on Abby having some fun with her mama and captured an especially heartwarming giggle-fest:

Screecher Creature!

I'll admit, I don't get to see Abby that much during the week due to driving Eli to and from school and our busy evening routine of getting both kids fed and in bed, but one of my favorite moments of the day is changing Abby as soon as I get home.  It's one of those rare moments when it is just me and her and we have each other's undivided attention.  Abby will babble in her soft raspy voice and tell me all about how her day went, and I'll just listen with an occasional, "Uh huh, tell me more".  As soon as we walk back into the living room, though, our little Abby-girl kicks out the jams and tries to compete with her brother for attention.  Instead of yelling, screaming, or even crying, Abby joins the family dinner conversation with her favorite noise: a hefty inhale resulting in a high pitched squeal.  She kind of sounds like David Lee Roth in his Van Halen heyday.  It's pretty awesome and I hope it's a talent that can carry her to rock and roll stardom in the future.  As old as I might be, I'll be right there in the front row rockin' as hard as any other punk hipster that thinks he's cooler than me. (Meh, I'll probably embarrass her on purpose by taking my shirt off and trying to stage dive.)

Get A Grip!

Over the past couple weeks, Abby has met a few more milestones, one of which is the ability to grasp and hold things.  She is able to grasp big things set in front of her (like her bug book here) but her brain-to-hand signals need a little more exercise before she has full control to grab smaller things.  Her dexterity is really quite amazing because you can see her focusing in on something and trembling as she streeeeeeetches out to grab it.  I think the main reason she is so driven to perfect this skill is that she has discovered that there are much more exciting things to chew on than her hands.  She's an odd ball because she abhors pacifiers and bottles, but she will chew on almost anything else.  Go figure.
I also noticed earlier today while doing tummy time that she is using her grasping skills to get a good grip on the floor blanket and pull herself forward.  Of course, she doesn't get to far because she has a lot of chunk to drag across the floor (insert "Your daughter's so fat " joke here).  I'm sure once she gets her legs under her and coordinated she'll be inch-worming her way around the entire house and into the guns, drugs and liquor cabinet.  
Call me a sensitive sucker, but the thing I like most about her grasping is that she now clings to us when we hold her.  One of her favorite things to do when we are cradling her and rocking her to sleep is get a tight grip on the collar of our shirts.  When we try to put her down in her crib, she just tightens up in an act of comfortable defiance.  When we have her upright and she is awake, she hangs on to us with tiny little hugs.  I can only hope that she will be more inclined to snuggle and fall asleep on my chest than Eli was around this age.
(Oh, by the way, you can also tell from the picture that Abby is getting is getting a little stronger and is able to sit up in her bumbo seat on her own!)

Fat and Happy

Is there anything better than a baby's smile?  I think not.  Keep your DQ Blizzards, walking through cool grass barefoot on a spring day, and zomedies (zombie comedy movies.  I just coined that!)  . . . I'd rather have a baby smile any time and Abby is happy to oblige.  She finally started smiling about a week ago and has been a true bundle of joy.  Every morning after her first feeding of the day, Abby will sit back on her Boppy and give a barrage of smiles to every face that greets her.  It doesn't take much, just a simple smile and a cheerful voice and she gives a big goofy grin back.  It's a true sign of love returned.
Even though she looks absolutely adorable in the picture, she actually has a funny progression of smiles.  She starts off by giving a little Corey Haim smile, then stretches it out to her cute full smile, then she gets really excited and goes full Chris Farley with it. When she tucks her chin back and it disappears into her many neck rolls, you can't help but laugh at her.  
Speaking of neck rolls, Abby had her 2 month check up recently and she weighed in at a whopping 14 lbs.  She has almost doubled in size and is now in the 99th percentile for weight.  She's still hanging around in the 50th percentile for height though.  Eli was the same way for the first few months, but he eventually stretched out and slimmed down once he started walking.