Personality

Abbie's personality has been showing through more and more strongly lately. She has all sorts of ideas and preferences about how things need to be. Recently she has become really smitten with big piles of books that she can climb into and read and read and read. Here, she was in process of constructing a giant pile on the couch. Sometimes she'll make the pile on a chair or on our bed or even on the floor. Then she'll climb into it and move the books back and forth until they are just right. Then either she'll read to you, or you'll read to her or both.

She has also gotten really picky about certain things. She has a strong aversion to socks that have strings in them. I think its because once one of the strings got caught on her toenail. In case you aren't aware (I wasn't before this all started), any decorative sock of any kind is filled with little strings. Therefore, she prefers plain colored socks, but even those can have tiny little strings at the seam, which she has been asking me to trim for her. This past weekend, plain purple socks weren't even good enough. They had to be plain white socks. We ended up going to the store to buy some more for her.

Also, she has certain places in the crib where her bears need to be - certain slats that they need to sit between and they need to sit just right. They can't slouch and they can't be tucked in between the slats to help them. No, they need to sit nice and tall all on their own and not move. It is so tough on all involved. Such high standards for such little bears.

Its not all stories for the therapist's couch, though. She has also been laughing hysterically at things that she finds funny. For instance, the neighbor's dog grabbed hold of his owner's shoe (it was lying in the driveway) this past weekend and Abbie just burst out laughing at the idea of the dog trying to eat the shoe. Also, she has a book about a pigeon that tries to drive a bus and she just thinks that is hysterical.

Monsters?

Two nights ago I was putting Abbie to bed. She was in her crib and I was sitting next to the crib. I wiggled my toes and they cracked. She heard it and told me it was monsters. I tried to convince her that it was just my toe, but she decided that before she could sleep she needed to get out of bed and check under the crib to make sure there were no monsters.

Then, last night I was putting her to sleep and, again, she said "monsters." I told her that that's why there are all these lovey bears in her crib. They protect her from monsters. I'm not sure that implicitly acknowledging the existence of monsters was the best idea, but this is what happens when she throws these curve balls at me.

Frustrated and Mad

So, usually when Abbie wants something that she can't have, she cries. Then we say, "Oh, you're feeling frustrated because you can't . . .". This is what happened last night when she wanted a bottle of lotion and we told her she couldn't have it until after her bath. Then, when bath was over we reminded her that now she could have the lotion. She surprised us by saying, "Frustrated and mad." We asked, "Were you frustrated and mad that you couldn't have the lotion before bath?" She nods.

Fast forward ten minutes. She has been playing with the lotion for awhile and we say it's time to be all done. She just looks at us and says "frustrated". Of course, we are just so pleased (and entertained) that she is articulating her emotions, that we can't help but let her play awhile longer.

And just because our constituency prefers pictures to words . . .

. . . a picture of Abbie coloring on the art easel that Tess gave her.