Love this girl! Gotta brag a little...

[Rachels]

Abby finally started to crawl yesterday, and it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. Have you seen a little child just learning to swim? They make it where they're going, but with a phenomenal amount of splashing, wavering, etc. Abigail's crawl is to crawling as THAT is to swimming. She wobbles and lurches, tips, hops with both knees at the same time, pauses to do downward-facing dog a few times-- but gets where she's going! I love it. Last night she suddenly went from a dead sleep to popping up onto her hands and knees and grinning ferociously. I patted her back, and she went WHUMP onto her belly, fast asleep again. Hilarious.

She can also suddenly point out anything you ask her to identify-- the kitty, Mommy's nose, flowers, baby, etc. The nose one cracks me up. I ask her to show me nose a lot. she has started to give me a look like "How stupid is Mommy?! I've showed her where her nose is six times already! Why can't she remember?"

She is also saying "Kit!" when she sees the cats, and "Hi, Dada," to Clay. (It comes out like aydada some of the time.)

AND she pulls up on things now.

I'm so impressed with her brilliant self.


-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[KathyO]

Oh, sounds like she's going to keep Mom a-hopping!! And of course she's brilliant! Recent research indicates that babies inherit their intelligence from their moms... ;-) No, really!!!

Best wishes for continued fun!

KathyO

[Rachels]

LOL! My friends and I kept quoting the rhetoric that while you're pregnant, the baby takes everything she needs, and you get whatever's left. I think that refers to nutrients, but I decided that it meant I'd have a graceful, articulate, focused kid-- since I was walking into walls and forgetting sentences halfway through.

I'm just so impressed by what babies can learn to do. If there's anything greater than watching your child figure out the world, I don't know what it is.

-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[atlbaby]

Congratulations on Abigail's crawling milestone!! Time goes by so fast, doesn't it?

I know what you mean about babies never ceasing to amaze you! Nowadays, I am astonished every time I see Arielle clearly have an idea and act on it. Like she'll go about placing her blocks/toys/cups all neatly in a row on a bookshelf ledge or table, and watching her I get all misty eyed! Ok I'm hormonal...but still, watching them discover things is so wonderful!

Sounds like Abigail is turning into quite a talker too! :)

-Rachel
Mom to Arielle Jill, 10/30/01
#2:) EDD 10/24/03

[egoldber]

I agree. I bought Sarah a "tea set" the other day (oh the joys of having a little girl...). I sat down and showed her how to pour tea. She started pouring tea for me, for her, for her doll, and I thought I was just going to start crying right there it was so sweet! (And I don't have the hormonal excuse. :) )

[Annette_C]

Rachel, how wonderful!! I can imagine how cute Abigail looks!! And I totally understand how you feel. In fact, our hearts just melt when our babies reach a milestone and achieve a goal (wait till she graduates college Magna Cum Laude!!:) ).
I'm going through something similar with Sabrina. We've been speaking two languages around her (English and Italian) and it's so cute to see her understand both!! My two older kids are fluent in Italian so I wanted Sabrina to be have the same opportunity.
Now, I'm just waiting for her to start crawling but, so far, she seems more interested in walking.
Congratulations on your little sweetie's accomplishments!

Annette
SAHM to Sabrina 6/24/02

[COElizabeth]

Congratulations, Rachel! She does sound very smart. And KathyO, you and Rachel always know about the most interesting research. I'd love to read the article you read about babies inheriting intelligence from their moms. Do you remember the reference? Just purely curious!

Elizabeth
Mom to James
9-20-02

[twins r fun]

Yeah for Abigail! She's going to be having fun now. And at what 9 1/2 months she just lapped my 16 month old boys in the speech department!

Nicole

[jojo2324]

Congrats on your little wonder! How exciting! I am very impressed. I didn't start talking until I was two; my mother says I sang all the time. My father says I am still making up for the delay.

Gannon is still getting the hang of this crawling thing. I need to invent some sort of baby knee pad with rubber spikes or something for traction.

But I was thinking this morning...If they awarded Olympic medals for number-of-rotations-made-during-course-of-one-MAJORLY-poopy-diaper-change, I think my squirmy toad would take the prize...:D

[loewymartin]

YIPPEE! Rachel, that's fantastic :-) I love your description - I can totally see her! Sounds like she's loving the new-found freedom crawling brings. I can't believe how much she is speaking too. I'm jealous! Alia will say our names, but that's about it (oh, and "NO" now that we've been using it often :-)). Sounds like Abby has turned the corner and is cruising straight on to being a walking, talking beautiful little girl. Congrats!

Michelle - Mom to Alia Jailin born 5/16/02

[KathyO]

Unfortunately, I don't have an exact reference at hand. There were a group of studies that came out in the mid-eighties, out of Cambridge University in England. The initial idea that this was the case was posited by a scientist in the 1800's.

What's interesting is that subsequent studies of girls with Turner's Syndrome are showing a strong indication that where intelligence comes from the mother's side, social skills seem to come from the father's side. Normal girls have an X chromosome from each parent; Turner's Syndrome girls have an X from one parent, and an incomplete chromosome from the other. Studies and gene analysis showed that girls who inherited the "incomplete" from Mom had normal social skills, and girls who inherited the "incomplete" from Dad had significant deficits in being able to relate to other people, perceive social signals, read facial expressions and body language, and the other abilities that make up the ability to interact well.

Of course, all this is overall trending. It's not an iron-clad predictor of every baby by any stretch. It's pretty interesting, though!

Cheers,

KathyO

[suzska]

I've done the same "pointing" thing with Evan. He says "No" for "nose." But the way he says it is different from his "no-ooo" for "no." It's so cute that you want to make him say it over and over, and then he looks at you like "not again" or just looks away in boredom. ;-) As I've posted in another thread, he's actually started to spell some words that he can't even say yet, like his name. Of course it just usually morphs into "V-N." Which he pronouces like "Vienna!" because "N" is pronounced "en-nah." "E-V-A-N-nah. V-N-nah. V-N-nah."

"How do you spell Evan?"

"VEE-en-NAH."

Of course half the time I ask him, he just ignores me. "Mom, I'm working on something else right now!"

It's so much fun to watch them learn!