Growth Spurts

In the last two months, I swear Abbie has had at least 2 distinct growth spurts.  Actually, if you count her feet, it's 3 growth spurts.  For some reason her feet decided to grow after the rest of her body.  Weird.  So, I should be happy about all of this, right?  I mean, my kid is growing.  That's a good thing, right?  Yeah, well, not if it's in the middle of a season!  Couldn't kids line up their growth spurts with the beginning/end of the seasons so we can buy ONE set of clothes and shoes to last the season?  Lucky for me, we bought a few things in 2 sizes this fall, and my mom bought her some new shirts and sweaters for Christmas.  Her pants have lasted longer, because she tends to be short-legged (like her mom-- poor kid), and we've been rolling the cuffs for a while. 
We were also grateful to be able to yank out a pair of hand-me-down sneakers from Emily Davis last week when Abbie's feet decided to grow a whole size over the course of two weeks. Seriously!  I took her in to have her feet measured right before Christmas and she was still a 4/4.5.  I took her in shortly after New Year's, and she measured 5/5.5!  I had to buy some new black shoes for her dresses, but am going to use the (bright pink!) size 5 sneakers for as long as we can.
Besides growing like a weed, Abbie is also becoming quite the bubbly child.  She loves eliciting giggle-fests with us.  She finds phrases that she thinks are funny, then repeats them over an over.  The phrase this week is "i've got mail", which she picked up from hearing me open my AOL email each day. 
A benefit to all of us, Abbie has begun to loosen her mommy attachment and is doing much better being left at a friend's house.  And, she didn't sit in my lap for the entire library program this week! 
Thanks to Little Gym, she has become more active.  She loves being chased around the house, and has learned to do somersaults on her own (they're still a little crooked).  She also loves escaping in the middle of a diaper change to run around saying, "naked baby!".  It's hilarious!
Reading continues to be Abbie's favorite past time.  She has a number of books memorized, and learns new ones fairly quickly.  And now that she has a special chair in the kitchen, she enjoys crawling up in it to read her favorite books.  Here she is reading "My Big Girl Potty" (another task we may be working on again soon!):