Big Two Days

The last two days or so have been amazing in terms of Penny's development. She is changing so fast, we have trouble keeping up with it all. I'm going to try to write it all here, but I'm sure I'll forget something. But trying not to forget things is the reason I write them here to begin with so I will do my best. In no particular order:

1. For about two weeks or more she's been really into her wagon. She loves to climb in and out of it and will get in and sit down and wait for you to come push her. Actually, she loves to climb into anything she can get into, including her toy basket, the laundry basket, and the boiler we let her have to use as a drum.

2. As of today, we discovered that she understands "in" and "out" as concepts. You can ask her to get a particular toy and put it "in" to something and she will, and then if you ask her to get it "out" again she will.

3. She understands lids and likes to place them onto containers.

4. She's been fake laughing for awhile now. If she hears someone laugh even in another room she'll imitate them with a fake laugh. But starting today she is fake coughing. Every time Tray clears his throat or coughs (which is more than he realized until she started doing this!) she will imitate him by fake coughing. It is really pretty funny.

5. Tonight she started feeding herself with the spoon for the first time. I still had to dip the food onto the spoon but then I just handed it to her and she fed herself. Really, really cool.

Also, yesterday I took her to baby music class at the YMCA. It was so much fun! We played with all kinds of instruments. She especially loved the big drum. As soon as the teacher pulled it out, she crawled over to it and started banging on it with her hand. Once she was given a drumstick she went to town. The other two (older) kids never got the hang of it - so I was kind of proud that she knew what to do. And at the end of class the teacher turned the drum upside down to use to clean up all the other stuff and Penny (of course) promptly climbed inside and sat down. She was happy as a clam. She had fun with all the instruments and all day today has found things around the house and used them as shakers or to bang together like she learned to do yesterday. I didn't get any pictures b/c Tray had the camera with him, but I will take it next time. She had a total blast. I feel such a sense of pride at how well she did. One of the most annoying criticisms I've gotten is that Penny will some how not be socialized because she is not in daycare (despite the fact that lots of people are stay at home parents with their kids). That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, but believe me I've heard it. Anyway, everytime we go somewhere like this, I am continually validated because she is wonderfully capable of interacting with other children and adults. She isn't even remotely shy or clingy to me at all. I know it's wrong but it just makes me want to rub people's faces in it! There's nothing wrong with her because she isn't in daycare. She's fine!

Finally, today we had a pre-Fourth-of-July party. I bought Penny a new baby pool. It is really neat. You hook it up to the water hose and it fills up with a couple inches of water and then starts sprinkling water out of holes in the top of it. It was super hot outside this afternoon and we set it up in the shade behind our house. Penny was scared at first, but we turned the water way down so the sprinkler parts didn't spray so big and she got in and started splashing around. A little later we turned it back up and she enjoyed the sprinklers. We also had a watermelon and we let her have some. She didn't know what to think about that. I think she liked it, but she kept trying to eat the rind instead of the watermelon part.

Here a few pictures from the last week and from today with her pool. We are headed up to the farm in Georgia in the morning, so I am sure there will be more Fourth of July festivities to report.