2 Years old!

Gabby is officially two and grown up these days! We saw a lot of changing in her when we were in Illinois for Christmas. She is talking up a storm. Most used words, mine, yea, milk, baby, pillow, blanket and we can not forget, I want to go outside. While we were there she said, " I want to see a snowman." and, "I want to use your chap stick dad." She is communicating great. When we got home she had her two year check up and she has another ear infection. We head back in three weeks and if it still looks bad then she will need to get tubes. She has had five in the past six months, this being her sixth. She is 25 1/2 pounds and 34 1/2 inches tall. 25% for weight and 75% for height! Long and lean our little Gabby is. Dr. Roe said she is advanced in the vocabulary area. Clearly, she is living up to her name. She is a parrot these days trying to say anything and everything. She loves to eat muffins, which she calls, "buffins." Really she still is a picky eater but getting better. I have been using a cook book called Deceptively Delicious in which you add pured veggies to foods. I have made two different kinds of muffins and mac and cheese all with veggies in them and she will eat them all. Her dad too which is wonderful!
She loves to play with her baby doll and push her in the stroller and tries to change her clothes and put a diaper on her. She has been willingly wanting to sit on the potty lately. She has been good lately too about telling us when she has gone poop. She peed on the potty today all on her own. We have a handful of success recently and one poop on the potty over Thanksgiving at meme and papa's house. This past trip to Illinois she also only wanted to talk or interact with all the men. Which has never been in the past. Typically she is scared of boys, this trip she was in love with John, George and Grandpa for sure. Very fun to see.
Not sure if she fully gets the fact that she is going to be a big sister but we talk about it everyday and she knows to point to my tummy when I ask her where her brother is. Then she points to her tummy and says, Gabby's baby. So fun.

21 Months~

Today Gabby sang the entire alphabet! She has the Leap Frog toy where you put the letters in or she can press the button and it sings the ABC's and she sang right along four times in a row. While rocking back and fourth and clapping. She can also count to ten. We practice counting when we go down the stairs every time. Tonight and last night when we put her to bed she sang along with the first two songs on her bedtime CD. First song is, Somewhere over the Rainbow, second song, Love me Tender. Amazing that she is learning so much. She is a repeater. In particular the last thing you say she is saying.
We had been struggling with diaper changes for weeks. We were having to put her into time out in the middle of the diaper change. As of this week, she will now tell you "poop" when she goes and she is now very willing and exciting to lay down on her changing pad to get changed. Who knows. She loves to sit on the potty but still no action lately. Earlier this week she sat on the potty for fifteen minutes only to get up and pee on the carpet outside the bathroom and then walk into the bathroom and poop on the floor. That was fun.
She is still super obsessed with her baby doll. Every time we get in the car she says, "baby home, baby sleeping or just baby." She is also saying Hasta Manana. Everyday she asks to go outside. Even in her room she will point to the window and say, "outside." She had her first Popsicle this week also her first chocolate chip cookie. She really likes them both very much.
She has pretty good manners. We are working hard on this. If she wants something typically she will making a grunting noise over and over..So, we have been getting her to use her works and say help please, more please. She says Thank you, love you. When she is with me all she does is ask for daddy and when she is with Jason all she asks for is Mama. Smart girl. She says, Gabby when she is hiding from you so you will know to look for her. She is just like Jason and is all about the surprise element. Mine and No are new in the past few weeks.
We gave her a blanket and pillow this past month both for the first time. She loves them and hands them to you every morning and say blanket, pillow. She loves being tucked in and just looks up and smiles at you.
She has been waking up in the middle of the night all week this past week and we think it might be her two year molars coming in. Lots of fun stuff going on. She is going to be a lady bug for Halloween but she is scared of her costume. It took us two weeks to get her to try the jacket portion of the outfit on. Yesterday we got her to try on another outfit which is a little leapord kitty. She had it on and loved it. So fun to see her get dressed up. So,we will see what she ends up wearing.
We found out this week that Sharon and Brian are expecting twin girls! She is due March 13, 2010.

19 Months

Gabby is quickly becoming a full fledged kid these days. She is repeating everything! At the fair we got her to say ostrich. Random?!? She knows now where her elbow and cheeks are. Jason taught her to kiss you on the cheek too. She says all the time now "open" which sounds to us like, "opie, opie" Also, if we don't open something fast enough or pick her up fast enough she immediately throws herself on the floor in tears. So, it's pretty safe to say she is on the floor fake crying a lot.

Still working on potty training. Not a lot of success but we at least put her on the potty. She is more interested in putting the toilet paper in the toilet. The other morning she peed in the potty and the tooted twice. She laughed so hard I thought she was going to fall off the toilet. Pretty funny. I would say we have had about 8 pees in the potty and that is all so far. Amazing since she fights us tooth and nail every time we change her diaper these days. She also wants to help put her pants on. She tries pulling them up. Same thing with her shoes.

Her new favorite thing is to sit in her tent in the house and drag her bear rug in with her. For more comfort I suppose. She loves it in there.

The last of her for eye teeth has finally broken through. Thankfully. Hopefully she will have them all grown in in a few weeks. Wishful thinking.

Potty Time,Talking and Ear Infection!

We traveled to Florida for the fourth to visit Grammie and "Papa." We took Gabby to the beach on Friday and she loved the water and was enjoying the sand somewhat. She loved sitting on Grammie's lap and let the waves crash into them. That same day she said, hot dog, elmo, pizza, all done and hi papa. So Larry's new name is Papa.
There was a big party on Saturday and she met a new friend named, Lucas and they played in the kiddie pool Grammie and Papa bought. We couldn't get her out of the pool all day. She just loved it. She even gave Lucas a kiss. Too cute.
Sunday driving home she also added the word elbow. They have been teaching her Spanish at daycare and she is now saying all the time, agua. So fun. She is trying to talk so much and repeating everything we say. I am in trouble now that is for sure. She tried to say mailbox on a walk this past week. Every time we pass a bench she stops, pats the bench and says, "sit, sit!" We can leave no bench unsat that is for sure. Once she is on the bench she pats her hand and says, "sit" for you to sit down as well. We think she is also saying, "go away?" Not sure but she must have heard it at daycare. Oh and of course, the NO's have come into everyday conversations. That is going keep us occupied for sometime.
I have been working on getting Gabby use to the potty seat. I just have been in the past two weeks putting her on the toilet with and without the diaper to get her comfortable. Well, Saturday, July 11, 2009 she decided she would pee in the potty. Very exciting of course. Now, I do have to admit that I think it was a total fluke and when I was yelling and excited she just looked at me like I was crazy. So, I am pretty sure she didn't even realize what had just happened. If I ask her is she wants to go potty she says either potty or baba and runs to the bathroom. Yesterday she peed on the potty again and still didn't seem to have any idea what was so exciting. Then we got off went to put her diaper on and she peed on the floor. So tonight, I asked her if she wanted to go potty and she said potty and off we went. She peed again!!! Then I said all done and she cried and wanted to get back on as if she still had to go. So we sat and sat and sat for about another five minutes. Only to finally take her off and have her pee on the floor. So seems to me she is somewhat understanding what is going on. Who knows. Not trying to rush it but she keeps kicking, screaming and crying these days every time we change her diaper. Along with trying to pull it off. So I figure why not try.
We took her back to the doctor yesterday as she has not been sleeping well and eating well since we have been back from Florida. She still has an ear infection in her left ear. She is now on another medicine and it has made her poop red. Fun! She slept better last night and we hope for more of the same tonight.
We feel that she really made the transition into a full fledged toddler while we were in Florida. She is all the sudden a big girl. Crazy how fast they change. It's more of a challenge to keep her busy to wear her out but so fun to hear her point at things and say, "what's that?" Or at least that is what it sounds like.

18 Months!

Gabby is using her words!!! This past weekend Grandpa Larry came to visit us in Atlanta to see the Red Soxs play the Braves. We were trying to get Gabby to do a roll for us so Larry said to her, "Gabby do you know that Grandpa can do a forward roll in the pool?" She promptly replied with, "I know." We were like really, did she just say that. Then we couldn't get her to stop saying, I know. She also said agua that day too. She has been saying nose the past few weeks.
Today she dropped her nilla waffers out of her cup looked up at us and said, "oh no!" We got all of this on video. It is so fun to hear her saying real words and using them correctly. I swear I heard her say tiger today too.
Gabby had her 18 month check up on Thursday of last week and she is 23 pounds 7 ounces and 33 inches tall. She did much better this time at the doctor office than last time. She only cried this time when they weighed her, measured her and when she got her shots. She even leaned in to give Dr. Roe a kiss when he came in. She also walked out with a double ear infection. I didn't even know. She had tugged at her ears a little but nothing to be alarmed by. She has had a runny nose but I figured it was from her three new teeth that are coming in. Great, mother of the year right here. She is starting to get better with strangers, not so scared. Waving to everyone everywhere we go. She is starting to hug on our legs and she will run across the room to greet you and give you a hug. Oh it so is the best feeling in the world. She will give you a kiss upon request also. Along with a hug on request.
She is also wanting to be Ms. Independent. Wants to run where she wants to run when she wants. If not, she will throw herself on the floor and cry. If you distract her then she realizes she is only fake crying. That is always fun to bust her.
We head to Florida Thursday for the fourth of July with Grammie and Grandpa Puglisi.

Updates...

Gabby said her name last week. A few times in the morning to Jason. Then one night last week I heard her saying her name while she was falling asleep. Tonight right before she went to bed she jumped in the kitchen. She has been working on the jumping for awhile but today she actually got both feet off the floor. Hilarious. She was very excited about it.
She has also entered a new stage this past week of winning and crying about anything and everything. My word. And now she is saying Uh Oh all the time. I would say it is the word she uses most. She said book last night. She is too funny when she goes up the stairs. She thinks she is tall enough to use the rail. Which she is not, so therefore she is reaching as far as she can to just let her finger tips touch while she climbs up. She is also excited now to put things in the garbage can. I have found a couple of her toys in there. This weekend we noticed she has three teeth breaking the skin. Her nose has been running like crazy. These are teeth numbers 13, 14, and 15.

16 almost 17 months old

Gabby has been really living up to her name these days. She is talking up a storm, we are not always sure what she is saying but she is going on and on and on. Yesterday we were laughing as we realized we were trying to talk over her just to hear one another in the car. I think this is just the beginning. Ha. Pretty clearly we can hear her say on a regular basis, dog, ball, hi, bye, more, mom, uh oh, bubble, banana. She is trying to say, keys, cheese, and socks..but it just sounds like sssssss...
She typically says for banana...nan nan na..too cute. She is crazy for bananas right now too. Every morning when she wakes up she pats her leg and says dog. Patting her leg is the sign language sign for dog. She is waving while saying hi and bye too.
Today at daycare she ran over to us and gave me a big hug then promptly took me by the hand to her backpack. She was talking and pointing the whole time. I think she must not know I already know what her bag looks like. Too cute. Jason said the other morning she said "bye bye Momma!" Too cute, wish I would have been home to hear it.
Gabby has been waking up in the middle of the night for the past few weeks. Twice we went in to give her some milk and she went back to bed. The other times she woke up we just let her cry it out. Not sure if she is getting more teeth or what is going on.
She has also been an eating machine lately. Can't get enough in her. She is still hit or miss when it comes to veggies. But she loves yogurt! Jason calls it the "Winckler Shovel" when she eats..she tends to cram as much as she can in her mouth just to make me worry she is going to choke.
She also discovered last week that if she holds both mine and Jason's hand she can lift her feet off the ground. This is her new thing and she thinks it is hilarious. We have spent countless hours walking her/holding her up and down the kitchen.
Jason bought Gabby a Barbie four wheeler. She still can't quite figure it out but is trying. She just has to press a little red button to get it to go but she will just press it for a second, laugh and hop off. She has driven it across the room once or twice.
Today she actually did a forward roll all on her own. Crazy. And she loves to try to do our hair. Yes, our hair. She loves to try to put her little hair bows in our hair.
We have been letting her stay longer at daycare these days. Now that she is officially in the toddler room. She is thriving so well in her new classroom. She is even napping on a mat for two hours a day. Crazy. They play outside and she loves to sing and dance and play with balls. She thinks all things round are a ball. So, when we are at the grocery store in the fruit and veggie section it's ball heaven for her.
She is signing please and thank you now as well. Gabby also got bit at daycare this week. First time..poor thing. The mark was gone by the next morning. Gabby has also been suffering from her horrible diaper rash again for the past two weeks. It seems to finally be clearing up. I am not sure what the deal is with her poor little bottom.
We have also put Gabby in time out a couple of times. This is interesting. She was trying to hit her friend Sophia when Sophie tried to take her toy. She did well the first time and the second time she cried the whole time. We are using Super nanny's techniques and they seem to work well. Ha.. The joys.
Grammie Sue and Grandpa Larry are coming to visit us this weekend. So are the Ruble family on their way through to Florida. We are looking forward to everyone visiting. We booked our tickets for the fair yesterday as well. Watch out!

Uh oh....

Gabby has been saying "uh oh" since March 1st. She says it all the time, sometimes appropriate most times not. Still fun. She has moved away from some of her signing onto pointing to what she wants. We are trying to keep her going with the signing but she is her own person these days. She started the week of March 9th grabbing your hand and pulling you to where she wants to go. So cute. She has also had three of her four molars break through. She will also now show you where her belly button is if you ask. We have heard her say lately ball, night night, momma. She still will say mmmmm sometimes when she is eating something she likes. She also will point to herself and say "Ga, Ga" for Gabby. She is getting much better with eating real foods. She is currently loving her puffs of course and graham crackers. Her mom is loving the graham crackers too.

We finally got over her diaper rash that she had for a month or so. Blisters and the whole works. We had two prescription creams and still there was no change. I think the best thing was letting her sleep with no diaper on. All that fresh air was key. We took her to Piedmont park this past weekend and found out she reacted to the Coppertone baby sunblock. She now has a red rash all over her face and arms. The doctor just recommended to use Waterbabies brand instead. We actually took her to the doctor today due to her rash and coughing, running nose, diahrea and fever. Of course, just something going around and the teething is not helping. She doesn't have much of an appetite and is pretty whinny but is better today than yesterday.
She loves to play with her blocks right now that she can stack and loves to push her grocery cart. And any kind of ball keeps her entertained.

Your Baby can read!

So, we got sucked into yet another infomercial and we purchased, Your Baby can Read. We have been having Gabby watch the video once to twice a day for the past month and sometimes she will do the action of the word of the video such as Arms up or Clap. We have started using flash cards with her as well. Today we started the stage 1 video with her and it is just more words. We are to have her watch it once a day and show her some flash cards too. She really likes to watch the video so, so far so good.
Since she is so good with her sign language we figured we might as well let her absorb the reading too while she is young. I swear I couldn't read very well until the fourth grade. I remember not being able to read well in the 3rd grade so I just moved my mouth and would turn the page periodically when we had silent reading. Jason said all of school was hard for him so we want to give her every fighting chance to have learning come easy!

Gabby is already 13 months!!

We sure have been busy since the last post. Gabby is now officially walking everywhere. The week before Christmas she was taking one to three steps. The weekend before she even took seven steps before falling. Then on Christmas eve, she took off walking across Steve and Laura's living room to both of her grandmas and there has been no looking back ever since. Even though it has been a month she still looks like a drunken sailor when she walks. Now, sometimes she will even run when she is pushing her walker. Pretty much now though she wants to do it all on her own, just like her mom. Which is so fun to see her personality coming out.
We took Gabby to the doctor on December 29th for her 1 year check up. She got three shots and we were told she had a very minor ear infection. She had had a runny nose for about three weeks and we thought it was her teeth. Every time I called the doctor they just kept telling me it was normal. But green boggies are not normal. Oh well, we live and we learn. She weighed in at 19 pounds and one ounce and 29 3/4 inches tall. Which is great but means she is still too little to face forward in her car seat. We have not weighed her again to see where she is now so we still just keep her backwards. It is safer so it is fine by me.
She has four top teeth now and four bottom teeth. We are pretty sure she is working on some molars as she has been a drooling machine the past two weeks. No fever or anything but slightly irritable at times. I mean, who isn't?! She is waving and saying BYE a lot now. It is so cute. Yesterday she blew me a kiss and then waved and said bye so clearly....my goodness she is a young lady these days. She loves to wave at everyone. Last night in her crib we watched her practicing blowing her kisses, sound effects and all. So fun. She is doing great with her sign language as well. We taught her over New Years to raise her arms up in the air when we say touchdown. She gets so proud of her self that she grins from ear to ear.
My mom and Caitlin came in town two weeks ago to visit and so we all took Gabby to get her first haircut. We paid, $17.99 and it doesn't look much different. She cried and I mean screamed the whole time. Poor thing. At least now she doesn't have a mullet. She is getting better about letting me put her hair up. There were a couple of weeks where all she would do is shake her head and not let you do it.
Gabby just started this week to run over to us and give us hugs. Oh, how it just melts your heart. She is eating almost solely real people food or the toddler foods now. She is still the slowest eater on the face of the earth but she is doing well. We also got her off the bottle completely. The doctor wanted her off right at twelve months. Naturally we tried but she refused every single sippy cup on the market until we tried the Nuby sippy cup. She is a lot like her mom in the fact that she doesn't like to be made to do anything and wants to do it on her own will. So after going two whole days with zero liquids in early January. I went back to the bottle and then a week later all on her own she decided to use nothing but the sippy cup. Whatever, I was just so glad it all happened. No one told me not to put milk in the bottle only the cup so next, that is if there is one we will not make that mistake again.
She had her 1 year pictures taken today and of course she wouldn't smile for the camera. I tell you I am not sure who she thinks she is. Ha. She also got her first pair of hard sole shoes today. Her left foot is a 3 1/2 and her right foot is a 4 so we settled on size 4 1/2 for her. They are brown and cute! She walks so funny in them but has done really well all day with them.
She is still sleeping 11-13 hours a night. Which is wonderful. We have now even discovered what they call night time diapers as we were needing them since she sleeps so long. It helps out great. She has had horrible diaper rash lately as well. So, we have been using lotramin and neosporin on a recommendation from another friend and it helps knock it out fast.
Oh, and now in the mornings when Jason gets her up she will sit up or stand up and be excited to see him and then quickly lay down and she wants him to rub her back..too cute. For a while now when she wants her legs scratched she will just pull up her pant leg and look at you. Then you rub her leg and she pulls up the other pant leg. It is so funny because she gets this dazed look on her face when you are doing it.
That is all the updates I can think of for now. She is getting so big we keep wondering where our tiny little baby went. I can't believe how much she has changed in this past year!