Swimming

Abigail and I will be staying in Kincardine for a week with my aunt and uncle. I'm hoping Lake Huron is sufficiently warm along their beach to take Abiagil swimming. She does so love the water! This morning I purposefully made the bath water cooler than usual and she had a ball splashing around. She's never splashed that much before. She splashed water all over her face and didn't care.
The cooler bath was also nice in light of the awful humidity and heat around here.

I think Abigail has a growth spurt coming again. She's been eating a lot and sleeping a lot more. With her additional time asleep during the day I've been better able to get work done. Back to the PhD...

Video Madness

This month has seen so many new developments for Abigail that I simply can not wait to share videos from her fourth month.
I recently shared a video of her in the bath.
Now you can see her playing with toys and rolling over! I don't have any better clips of her talking and laughing since the three month video. But I think I will update the blog to have links in the sidebar directly to all the posts with videos.
Without further delay, then, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeres Abbie!!

Bear and Baths

You may recall that long ago (in February) I started knitting a bear for Abigail. My first complex project. Bear sat unstuffed, without ears, and faceless (but with a dress ready) for many months... until today!! I think she is even cuter than the pattern I used. It called for Xs for eyes, but that looks a little morbid to me!
Meet Bear. She doesn't have a name yet. Maybe we should call her Koigu, since that is the wool she is made of.

I hope Bear and Abigail will be the best of friends.

As I was already going to post about Bear and I have some new bath photos, this Blog is brought to you by the letter B today.

When Abbie is done her bath, she has to wait in her chair while mommy showers. Look how good she is at waiting quietly after her bath.

See Abbie get into the bath. "Oooh, this is very warm" she says. I assure you, it's not too hot, despite what her face might say. Once she's in, she loves it :)



That's all for today. I hear Abigail waking... I had just enough time to upload photos and post this new message.
Darla would like me to add that we are having a lot of thunderstorms - and she is not happy about it. Abigail, fortunately, does not seem phased by thunder or lightening.

Learned Kid

Abigail attended the Societas Magica conference on Magic: Frontiers and Boundaries this week. I accompanied her. We learned many things. It was an interested conference for its multidisciplinary approach to one topic - magic. There were people studying a very wide variety of its manifestations - from ancient texts to modern practitioners and everything between. The delegates came from across the western world. We were lucky to have this conference in our backyard, so to speak. All too frequently for me, these types of conferences, which I would live to attend, are held in Europe.
Abigail was on her best behaviour at the conference. But she stayed home with dad in the evening, so she missed the three wonderful keynote lectures.
Yep, Abbie's going to be even smarter than me :) At the very least, she'll probably have a better vocabulary. I already read to her from the Journal for the American Academy of Religion and other such texts. Of course, I'm not trying to indoctrinate her in this field of study, it's just a way of keeping her entertained (being read to) while I get some necessary reading done.

Also, today is Father's Day. I would add a photo of Abbie and Robin today, but I just discovered that the batteries on the camera are dead. Here's one from recently at least.



Robin received bath sheets (ie, huge towels) and a movie for Father's Day. Our Star Trek movie collection is now complete.

Happy Father's Day to all the rest of the fathers we know.

I'm crowded, roll over

Have I mentioned before that Abigail is a bed hog? She reminds me of the song "There were three in the bed and the little one said: I'm crowded, roll over. So they all rolled over and one fell out and he gave a little kick and he gave a little shout..." (he being Robin ;)

Which leads into her newest accomplishment: as of today Abigail rolls all the way over onto her belly. She been almost able to roll over for the last week. Combined with holding her head up when on her belly and playing with toys, Abigail really enjoys playing on the floor now. I should note that she only rolls over when she is diaper free - no bulk of cloth to impede her.





Narrowing the window of when we will be in Winnipeg: we'll be there for Aug 9. That's the most I can give you for now, but I will keep you updated (Aunt Joyce).

3 Months

We celebrated Abigail's 3-month anniversary by getting dressed up for a wedding. The dress did not stay on her long after the ceremony, however, because it is fricken HOT around here. 40 degrees with the humidex the last couple days. Abigail was making everyone jealous yesterday as she hung out in her (adorable cloth) diapers.
I was certainly jealous!
It was a beautiful wedding, and heat aside, the weather was perfect. The occassional cloud cover was a welcome relief. The ceremony was a wonderful Pagan ritual that involved many family and friends. It was a nice and casual affair, which I am certain all the men are most grateful for - no tuxedos!

But you're not here to read about my friend's wedding. So we'll jump straight to the video. I hope you enjoy. The last half is the best :)

full of surprises

It has been an exciting couple of days here at home. Abigail is full of surprises, which is somewhat surprising given how much time she is spending nursing and sleeping (must be cuddling with mom too). Teething is really tiring her out! But there are also wonderful moments full of smiles.

There are two new developments from the last couple days to report.
1) She is holding her toys! Not only is she holding them and moving them about, but she has discovered that she can hold her duck and chew on him. This seems to be her favourite toy so far. If course, she could hold and chew any of the toys I give her, but this one seems easiest to her. Howard (that's what I'm calling him because he looks a like an alien duck) was the first newborn toy she received. He's made by Under the Nile of all organic cotton. (Goes with her UtN Earth Goddess blanket, cloth diaper, and clothes.)
2) As of today, she is holding her head up while playing on the floor laying on her belly.


Abigail and Howard



She turns 3 months old on Saturday. I had better get to work on this month's video!

One other surprise was a blanket and book gift for Abbie from Pat and Wayne. We love them, of course. It's always fun finding packages in the mailbox.

Baby Shower the Second

Abigail was honoured with another baby shower today. She received many wonderful gifts. Unfortunately for the guests, she was cranky - which is not her usual state. She was either sleeping, eating, or crying because she wasn't doing either of the first two. She had smiles for grandpa later in the day (video to follow!). I suspect this is mostly because she is teething. This evening she also started holding here teething toys and is close to being able to hold them in her mouth.

Here is our gorgeous girl with her mommy and daddy - all dressed up. She definitely has daddy's blue eyes.


And here she is laughing at her great-grandpa and great-aunt.