Abigail Ettinger, Artist

Now on exhibit on Abigail's bedroom wall.  Original drawing by the young Brooklyn artist, Abigail Ettinger - mixed colored crayons on yellow construction paper.

Abigail seems very proud of her latest creation.  Jonathan held down the paper while Abigail chose each crayon to draw with, one by one, or sometimes five by five.  The drawing was finished when Abigail raised her arms and said "Done."

She loves to see her original creation hanging on her wall, and today placed another drawing on the shelf beneath this one while proudly looking up at this drawing.  We're pretty proud too!

Quite good for an 18-month old.

We've had quite the roller coaster ride since we last posted.  Amanda is back at school teaching Kindergarten, Jonathan is home watching our girl.  Our lives were tossed up in the air and rearranged into a new normal.  Then, Amanda's Grandma passed away, something we did not expect to happen as rapidly as it did, and we had to change yet again.  Her death is a huge loss to our family but, of course, life goes on.  Grandma's spirit lives on.  Always.

Abigail continues to amaze us everyday.  Today she pointed to and said, "tooshie."  She knows where her tooshie is!  She likes to read along to books she loves.  Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? is one of her favorites.  She says buzz, buzz; she ticks and tocks like a clock, and hoos like an owl.  There's another book too, Moo, Baa, La, La, La, that she will quote from all day long.  If you hear her saying, "lalala," she wants you to continue with rest of the story which is "No, no, you say that isn't right.  The pigs say day oink all day and night."  Then she looks very pleased with herself.

Here's a video of her running at the Botanic Garden...afternoon out with Papa. 

Even though Abigail's hair is long enough for some pixie-like pigtails, there's still nothing better than seeing her curls bounce as she runs across the playground, laughing away.  It makes life good.

"Yellow" and "purple" are colors she most certainly recognizes and says.  We point out each car and notice its color as we stroll past them on the street.  Seeing a yellow car: priceless.

The end of summer

Best pick in town:

Jonathan and Amanda are the bookends to summer--Jonathan's birthday falls on or around Memorial Day and Amanda's on Labor Day.  This year both were on the Monday of the those long weekends so, it made it a particularly exciting summer.  And now as this hot, sticky season comes to a close, we've uploaded pictures of the summer that was.  (Check them out, to the right)

The hot weather waved in pigtails for Abigail, berry and peach picking on Mama's birthday, writing (and smelling) with great big crayons, a trip to the Museum of Moving Image, dancing at a parade, blowing kisses (she's got the first part down--bringing her hand to her mouth but hasn't yet extended her hand out to send the kiss but, the sentiment is there) and plenty of PEEK-A-BOO time.

She still has a great love of flowers and is simply amazed at the world around her.  "Ooo" and "Mmmm" and "Ahhh" have become everyday expressions in her excitement of living each day to the fullest.  It's a joy to see her find wonder in water, going up and down again and again (while saying "updownupdownupdownupdown") and to just be in her jubilant presence. (even with her cold!)

Lu La, Lu La

Abigail loves to be sung to. She also loves to sing, "lu, la, lu, la" or "da, do," it's such a joyful melody to hear. She's just so happy to be alive when she does it, and makes all around her pretty happy too.

She's very into saying "more" and "up, up, up." Sometimes these are very obvious what she wants their outcome to mean, like if she's eating raspberries and has run out, she wants more of the fruit. However, sometimes she says "more" and we haven't even done anything yet and it is very unclear as to what "more" should be done. Once at the beginning of the bath she started to say more, so I put in more soap to make bubbles. "More." Sprinkle in a few more toys. "More"--and then she proceeds to reach for Mama's shoulder and push her closer to the water, asking her to blow more bubbles in the water, making a funny sound and getting very wet--just like Mama had done the night before. But how was Mama supposed to know more meant, "get your face in the water and blow!"--lots of guess work these days!

Another piece of detective work--"baffalo"--doesn't always mean babbaloo like we thought it did. She says it all the time, hmmmm.

She has turned into a hide and seek machine--we hide and she comes and finds us. A knee slapping good time.

She now likes to take the measuring cup out of Daphne's bin and feed the pup one kernel at a time. She's so considerate.

Sweet 16 months...where is the time going?

Lots of the time when she walks she does so on tippy toes--so her nickname: Twinkle Toes.

Somersault!

Our little lady did an incredible somersault on our big bed this evening! Actually about 5 of them, but one was dead-on: head tucked under and tumbled straight forward! No photo evidence but Grandma was there to witness it too. Abigail looked EXTREMELY proud of herself and as soon as she was done said, "more!" Did someone say, "gymnastics class?"

Disneyland

We had a terrific (albeit demanding) time in California!

We first spent some time in Hollywood with Nicole and her very wonderful dog Diggy. Abigail didn't quite get the whole time change thing and woke up the first few mornings at 2 or 3:30--she was just excited to start her vacation. Begrudgingly-bleary-eyed, we did too.

Though we did have a wonderful time exploring all the sights and sounds that Disneyland had to offer, it was watching Abigail walk back into our home that made it all worth it. She was in awe of seeing a monkey that hangs on our wall still there, she was thrilled to see all her old toys and took a stroll around the house saying, "da, do, da" pointing at everything with such glee.

Yay for vacations, double yay for the familiar.

Oh, something really cute: both of us heard Abigail saying, "buffalo," again and again. We couldn't figure out why this was now in her vocabulary. She saw a buffalo in books and possibly at the Bronx Zoo but, really, why would she be saying it again and again. Then Jonathan realized: she saying "babbaloo." (which we mentioned in a past post she loves to do on her belly, drum or anywhere else she can pound!)