Little Miss Independent

Yesterday when I walked through the front door with Abby & bags of groceries, the telephone was ringing, so I put her down next to the groceries. By the time I wrapped up my call, Abby had helped herself to a nectarine from one of the bags. That's great, I thought, only it needs to be washed. So I took it from her intending to wash it, notwithstanding the very loud protests... in the few short seconds it took me to give the nectarine a little bath, Abby found another one & taken a bite out of it too... so we both had an afternoon nectarine break (not quite as ripe as I prefer)! She would have finished off the nectarine, right down to the seed, but I took it away at the point she dropped it into an empty Sprite box that was by the back door for the recycling bin. She loves to put things into containers & take them out again. She had the nectarine on its way out of the Sprite box & onto the "semi-clean" kitchen floor when I confiscated it. This was after she had put it in her play refrigerator, oven & sink... each time she carefully placed it in the appliance, closed the door, tossed her arm into the air as if to say "ta-da" & then opened the door again to take it back out & move on to the next appliance... & it also made its way into the little cup holder on the lid of the ice chest. That nectarine had a happy, adventurous, well-travelled life! My friends & family who give me grief about not letting Abby eat off the floor & play in the dirt should be so proud!

After snack, she played with (mostly climbed on) her play kitchen for a while. The first time I caught her climbing on the kitchen, she had climbed on top of it & then over it onto the window sill behind it. Of course, I did rescue her immediately rather than run for the camera... but I sure wanted a photo!

By the time she went to bed last night, she had matching bruises on either side of her forehead. One she earned by excitedly crawling right into a wall at my parents' house when I asked her if she wanted to go outside with Grandpa... she forgot the wall was between her & the back door. The other one she got when she hiked a leg over the side of the bathtub & climbed on in while she was not so patiently waiting on me to wash her earplugs for bathime... Wow! I did not know she could do that yet! But she barely even cried, as I leaned over to make sure she was ok. One big adventure after another. Life is good. :-)