Scrambled Eggs: Abby

Here is my tribute to my sweet Dabbers. We call her so many things....Abber-Dabbers, Daberoo, Daberoni, Dabs, and Abs. I think I'm leaving out a few, but you get the picture. I'm not sure why the "d" got added to her name, but it did, and her nicknames all became variations of that.

Abs is the most outgoing of all the babies. She smiles at strangers when Marie frowns, and Will stares and sometimes even cries. Abby is always showing off her four little teeth with her huge grin.

Abby is also the snuggliest of them all. She loves to hug and kiss. When I'm holding her, and I give her something she wants, she'll put her head down on my shoulder to give me a little thank you hug. When I ask her for a "besito" (little kiss), she opens her mouth wide and mauls me.

Dabbers is also the dog whisperer. She's amazing with Winnie. She points to her whenever she comes in the room and says, "Dog." She pets her, and she does this thing where she'll walk over to Winnie, sit in front of her, and then rest her head on Winnie's head. I do this to Winnie a lot so I'm sure she learned from seeing me, but she's just so gentle about it, and Winnie just licks her, or sits there quietly and lets Abby do whatever she wants. When Will or Marie even come close to Winnie, she growls. They have abused her enough. She knows that Abby is gentle and sweet, but the other two are somewhat unpredictable. Winnie never bites, but the growl is her warning to them to stay away. For Abby, though, she'll roll over on to her back, and let Abs love her.

Abby is our fastest learner. We practice a "trick" a few times, and she's got it, in 3 languages (sign, Spanish, and English). She was also the first to walk, and she was first to say "dog," which was pretty much everyone's first word. What can I say, the girl got her momma's brains!

Maybe she learns quickly because of her love of reading. When given a pile of her toys, she'll grab a few books, sit in the corner, and turn through the pages. She points at the pictures on each page and asks, "Dat?" I have to identify everything for her. She prefers to sit in my lap and have me read to her. Once the other two see this, they also fight for a spot on mommy's lap.

On the other hand, she's daring, like her daddy. She will do anything, and she's never scared. At Marmie's house, if we turn our backs for one second, she's at the top of the stairs looking down at us and laughing. She walks up to her baby pool, which is full of balls, and does belly flops straight into it. I'm afraid she's going to do this one day when the pool is empty. That's going to hurt. She always wants to be up on the couch and tries to jump off over the sides. This girl is going to have some injuries. I foresee many emergency room visits in her future.

She usually stays out of the major fights between the kids. I don't know if she is necessarily a peacemaker or if because she's bigger than the others, they simply don't engage her figuring they'll lose. Don't get me wrong, she'll fight for what she wants, but usually it's more in self-defense, whereas Will just bites or hits Marie because she's there.

Abby is our worst sleeper. Her naps are usually the shortest, and at night, she fights falling asleep for a long time. Typically, she wakes up at least a couple of times at night. Most of the time, it will only go on a few minutes, and she'll go back to sleep, but some nights, after hearing her scream for 30 minutes, I have to go in and rescue her. I don't know if she has ever slept more than 6 hours straight.

Abby is also our worst eater. She's super-picky. All she likes are carbs, much like her daddy. She loves crackers, cereal, bread, cereal bars, and cookies (especially Nilla Wafers). However, she does love cheese and veggie meatballs, which are not on her daddy's "faves" list...in fact, he despises both. I'm constantly trying to come up with different things to feed her, but if she doesn't want it, she carefully picks up each piece, and tosses it over the side of her tray.

The little animal lover-this is a bunny statue at Marmie's house. Of course, Abby doesn't know it's a statue. To her, it's just another animal to love.