Penny's New Year Resolutions

Get the boys across the street to let me play football:



Do more puzzles:



Get more sleep (or, wait, is that Mommy making a resolution for me?):

Good Things

So, I've had a few good things happen to me in the last week or two. First, I found out that my dissertation didn't just disappear into the library, unread by anyone but my mom and dad. And second, I won something! I never win anything. I entered a contest with Mambo Sprouts - an organic food company. You can read about the contest here. The deal was that they drew a name everyday for twelve days, and I was one of the winners! A package came in the mail on Christmas Eve. This is all the stuff I got:



In addition to a lot of food samples (including some kid's snacks I can't wait to try out on Penny), it came with an entire ream of coffee leaf paper and two full size bars of goat's milk soap. There are a lot of coupons too. I was so excited to win something. This, together with the Whole Foods Market Cookbook that Chris gave me for Christmas, will help me with my New Year's resolution to eat better.

Play Kitchen

I know Penny is maybe a little bit young for it, but I really wanted her to have a play kitchen for Christmas. The only thing is, I really wanted it to be a wooden one, and they are expensive. So, I got it in my head that I could just make her one. There are tons of diy play kitchens on the internet -- a lot of them made with IKEA components -- and I got some inspiration there. After some searching of Craigslist, I couldn't find any IKEA parts available and not having the time or inclination to go to Atlanta to the nearest store, I decided I would make one totally from scratch. So, I printed a picture of one I liked and took it to "the project desk" at Lowes. A very nice gentleman helped me pick out the wood I would need and cut it into six pieces. I couldn't afford to get the thick wood, so I bought quarter-inch luan and some framing. Here are my components (the light wood pieces and framing in front - sorry the picture is sideways).



I got Tray to show me how to work the saw and other stuff and went to town. It took me forever to build the frame part, but once that was together, tacking the luan pieces onto the frame went fast. I had to cut the front piece into parts to make the cabinet door and stove door -- I used a jigsaw for that. I also cut a hole in the top piece for the "sink" (which is really a metal bowl). And then I had to paint the thing. Here's the almost finished product.





This was as good as I was able to get it before Christmas morning. I still need to install the "faucet" and do something about a couple exposed screws on the interior (I tried using the Dremel tool on them, but the sparks scared me). I also want to put in a shelf, which would be easy but I ran out of time.

She seemed to enjoy it. She liked stirring the pot that we put up on the stove for her. She also enjoyed moving bows from the pot to the sink and back again. I think as she gets older she'll really like having it, and it was a lot of fun for me to make -- and I did the whole thing for around $25! I was going to get her this set of cookware, but decided that the greenest thing to do was to use stuff we already had. So, she is currently playing with our camping type stuff and things like that. If she plays with it a lot, maybe for her birthday we'll get her a little table and chairs and a tea set. I also need to get her some tools. Now that she's seen me with the hammer and nails and the drill and such, she thinks those things are super cool. I (or my brother) had a fun little play tool set/work bench when we were little. Maybe I'll work on that for next Christmas. Ha!

Merry Christmas!

To you and yours

Mommy and Daddy

Penny is saying Mommy and Daddy now instead of Ma-ma and Da-da. It's not every time, but I first noticed it a couple days ago. She'd say it when looking at our pictures, but not when addressing us. Today though I have heard her say Mommy more than Ma-ma. It's bittersweet.

This past weekend she got on an "and" kick. She likes to make lists of things stringing them together with "ands." Mama aaand Dada aaand D aaand Jake aaaand Mullet aaaand Boo aaand whatever else happens to be in her line of sight. On a side note, she calls herself "Penty". So, I was getting her ready to go outside and I said, "We're going to go outside. The dogs are going outside and Daddy is going outside and Mommy is going outside." She said, "aaaand Penty." I said, "Yep, you too."

The Land of No

We have entered the land of no. No is Penny's favorite word. I have learned that if I asked her anything, anything at all, in the form of a question, she will answer, "No."
Last night it took me forever to get her to take a bath. Every night after supper she almost immediately heads for the bedroom saying "bath. bath." But, when I got her in there she stood in front of our closet door and would not come get in the bath tub for anything. I asked her, "Do you want to come get in the bath?" No. "Do you want to come see the bubbles?" No. etc. Oh, and I forgot, all sentences that start with, "Let's...", as in, "Let's get in the bathtub ok?," are met with "No." before I even finish the sentence. "Let's go change your diaper." No. "Let's sit down and have some supper." No.
Patience is a virtue.

On the plus side she continues to do cool stuff. She's been counting to two ("one...two...") for a good little while but yesterday she added five and six. So now it goes, "one...two...mumble mumble something...fife...six). She'll hold up her fingers too, but can't make them do anything to correspond with the numbers she is saying. Even though she has added five and six to her verbal count I have only seen her actually count physical objects up to two. Tonight at supper Tray and I were having a conversation about something that did not pertain to Penny and evidently she felt left out because she lifted her hands up and started counting for us. It was kind of funny.

She also knows the color orange. Of all the colors to start with you'd think she'd pick something easier to pronounce, but she loves to eat sweet peppers right out of the yard and they are orange in color. She used to try to pick the green ones too and we'd tell her she'd have to get an orange one, so I think that's why she knows that color. Anyway, her stuffed mouse has one orange paw and she'll hold it up and go, "Are-dandge" (which is cute too - but not so much at 4 a.m.)

Enunciation

Last night Penny started saying "water" correctly instead of "wa-wa," and when we were reading her books instead of saying, "bok-bok" (the chicken sound) she started actually saying "chicken." She pronounces it with the emphasis on the second syllable, so it comes out sounding really cute. Also, she has a small stuffed polar bear that she is convinced is a mouse (I think because it is white instead of brown like her other bears). You guys, the way she says "mouse" is just the cutest thing ever.

That's My Daughter

So, I may have underestimated P on the -ing thing. Tonight at supper she said (with a mouthful of bread), "I chewing bread." (Then she said, "Wa-wa." (water). I pointed to her sippy cup and she pointed to my cup and said, "NO. Mama wa-wa.")

Also, this evening she said, "swimming." I used to take baths with her more often and when I did I would sometimes lay her back in the water so she could float on her back while I supported her. I hadn't done that in awhile, but last night I laid her on her back with both my arms under her and told her she was "going swimming." She seemed to enjoy it, but was tired and as usual was ready to get out of the tub after a few minutes. Tonight after I finished bathing her, she said, "swimming." I was surprised that she remembered from last night. So, I laid her back and let her float a little (even though the water was actually kind of shallow). Then she said, "sit," so I sat her up. Almost immediately she said, "swimming," again, so I laid her back down. She floated there looking around for a few seconds and then looked over at me and said, "I swimming." I said, "That's right. You're swimming."

Penny really, really likes to go outside. She would spend the entire day out in the yard if she could. Tray always says, "That's my daughter. She wants to be outside." Well, she likes to swim - that's my daughter too!

Running Commentary

Penny is so funny these days giving us a running commentary. This morning for instance: down. walk. door. open. dogs. (the dogs were in their kennels just outside our bedroom door). These aren't commands she is issuing, but rather statements as I put her down, walked toward the door, opened it, and moved to let the dogs out. It's like that all day long. She continues to trip us out with the (seemingly) random words she will say out of the blue. One of today's was "raining," which of course it was. She'd look out the back door and say, "raining. outside." I don't think she really understood "raining" as a verb, but it was still kind of neat. The other fun thing she does is to use adjectives, mostly "big," "heavy," and "pretty." She has a large stuffed dog that is "heavy," and this morning she leaned in and asked me for a "big kiss." Tray always thought it was funny that our nephew Owen would say "hot coffee," so he's been teaching Penny to say that, but she mostly just calls it plain old "coffee" (anything in a mug is coffee to her). She does call things hot though if she happens to think that it is hot. A lot of what she says still requires some translation, especially if you aren't around her much, and at least once or twice a day she'll say something that I don't understand and it'll take me 5 or 6 times to realize what it is she's saying. But, every now and then she'll say a sentence as clear as a bell and we realize it won't be too much longer until we're all having real conversations.

Baking Catch 22

Have you all had those strawberry preserves that people make using figs and strawberry jello? You can't tell it's made of figs; you think it is 100% strawberries in that jar, right down to the seeds. Well, I had a little half-pint (quarter-pint?) of gigantic blackberries that I purchased at Winn Dixie last weekend. I thought Penny might could have them, but they turned out to have a lot of seeds. I decided to try to find a recipe in which to use them, but there really weren't enough to do anything with - until I found a pie recipe for apple/blackberry pie. The trick is that you basically fill up your pie with apple slices and mix in a handful of blackberries (one or two cups, whatever you've got really). The relatively small amount of blackberries completely infuses the apples with blackberry flavor and it tastes like it is totally a blackberry pie. You can't taste the apples at all (not that it would be bad if you could). What a great way to get a lot of mileage out of a few blackberries. It is an awesome pie. It makes me wish I had twice as many blackberries -- but, then, if I did I would never have had a reason to make this pie.

Skin Allergies

So. I think Penny has eczema on her chest and back. I know she has it on her neck just inside her hairline. That's pediatrician confirmed. I follow his recommendations and occasionally use Head and Shoulders on her hair for that. But now she has these dry rash-y patches on her chest and back that just won't go away. In my attempts to make her more interested in bath time, I was using her baby wash as bubble bath to make bubbles. Then I saw that Johnson's specifically makes a bubble bath in their baby product line. I bought that so as not to run out of body wash so quickly. I'm pretty sure that's what triggered these latest spots. I stopped using the bubble bath over a week ago now and the spots have stopped multiplying, but the ones that were there have not gotten any better. I've been using hydrocordisone cream, but I don't know what else to do. I was thinking of swapping to Aveeno or something like that, but I'm scared to try a new product. I am always reluctant to try new skin care items because I am allergic to pretty much everything -- Mr. Bubble and really any bubble bath not made by bath and body works, all Mary Kay products, Tide detergent, the list goes on. I'm scared that if I put something new on her she'll have an all over break out like I sometimes get. But, then, I also want to get rid of these dry rashy patches. Anybody have any eczema experience?

Big Girl

At sixteen months, we have definitely reached toddlerhood – by which I mean emotionally. Penny wants to be a big girl so badly these days. Her new favorite word is “no.” She refuses to drink from her sippy cup and will only drink from a grown-up cup. She gets frustrated/mad if you try to make her use her cup, but she can’t drink from a regular cup without spilling everywhere, so she gets frustrated that way. I let her have a cup in her bath though so she is practicing drinking with one where it doesn’t matter if she spills it.

She doesn’t want to sit in her highchair either. So we’re going to get her a booster chair for Christmas. I think she’ll like sitting at the table like a big girl.

Oh, I know this is only going to get worse, but she is such a handful sometimes right now. She also tons of fun too.

One good thing is her ability to verbalize what she wants. She can tell me what she wants a lot of the time and she seems to thrive on routine – frequently letting me know stuff like it’s time for her bath (“baff!” or sometimes she goes all out with, “Baff. Bubbles. Tub!”) if I take too long cleaning up after supper. It’s nice not to have to guess at what she wants all the time.

Chili Cook-off

Today I participated in the Department of State's chili cook-off to benefit the Florida State Employee Charitable Campaign. I participated in the ice cream making contest back over the summer. That event was a disaster for me. I made chocolate sorbet because it was milk-free, but it evidently melts easier than ice cream, because even though I had it in a cooler it was melted by the time the contest started. However, it did make a nice topping for everyone else's ice cream! And, I got some microfiber towels as a consolation prize. I cut them up and still use them as reusable swiffer pads for my swiffer sweeper.

Anyway. Today's cook-off was chili. I made a quadruple batch of my chili that Tray loves. It has Worcestershire sauce in it, so it is a bit sweet at the same time as it is hot. I love Worcestershire sauce, so it's my favorite chili recipe. There were maybe 15 other competitors (I didn't count exactly). I didn't win first, second, or third place. BUT, I made so much chili that my crockpot was almost overflowing, and I sold every drop! It cost five dollars to eat at the cook-off, and that got you one bowl of chili and all the fixings and sides. One bowl of chili. People had to pick which one they wanted (we gave out miniature samples to anyone who asked, to help them choose.) I know lots of people picked other chilis, but plenty of people picked mine out of all the others. That was just so cool. I think I made over $50 for the FSECC, although I didn't keep count of the bowls I served. I made so much chili that I thought I'd have plenty to bring home, but I didn't have any left! Tray was (is) very disappointed. I promised him I'd buy the ingredients again this weekend and make some just for him.

Christmas Tree

We got our Christmas tree up on Sunday. Actually, we didn't decorate it until Monday because the lights turned out to be quite a hassle. But anyway, we thought Penny would think having a tree inside would be so cool. She touched it because we asked her to, but otherwise, it seems like she barely even notices it is there. Strange. Oh well. I think it's pretty.

Under the Table and Dreaming

On Sunday, Penny crawled under the table chasing Mullet and decided to lay down and proclaim, "NIght-night." It was only 9 a.m., but I went ahead and got her ready for a nap and she was out like a light and slept almost two hours!

Also, today, a rare toothy grin:



She picked herself out a toothbrush at CVS on Saturday. It features Grover, Elmo, and the token girl one whatever her name is. Anyway, she loves it and tries to brush Tray's and my teeth if we let her. I haven't used toothpaste yet (not sure when you are supposed to start that? seems like she would swallow it.), but she seems to be getting the hang of letting me brush her teeth.

Cracker Fit

Being able to communicate has its pros and cons. Today at the grocery store, I bought two bags of popcorn from the boy scouts out front (memories of my brother selling boy scout popcorn compelled me to make a purchase). I stuffed the bags in my purse as Penny and I were on the way in the store. On the way home from the grocery store, I reached into my purse to get some lip balm and had to move the cellophane wrapped bags. Penny heard the bags rustling and started asking, "Cracker, cracker?" and sticking her hand out to the side of her car seat. She had a bag of choo-choo's (Cheerios) already so I told her to eat those. Nope. Not having it. Ok. Ok. I dug out her bottle of Puffs and handed her back two Puffs. The offer was met by a firm "nnnnnno" and pushing my hand away. "Crackers! Crackers!" "But I don't have any crackers, baby." "Crackers, crackers! Crackers? Please?" "I don't have any crackers baby. Eat your choo-choos." And then she started crying. So, I did what any self-respecting parent would do and pulled in to the next convenience store and bought her a 25 cent package of Lance cheese crackers. Oh yeah. She's got me wrapped around her little finger.

Bats v. Birds

Penny and I have had an interesting discussion the last few days. She didn't do it tonight, but the last three nights and yesterday morning almost as soon as she woke up she started up with, "Birds? Birds? Bats? Birds?" We were reading a sesame street counting book in which the nine page features the Count and nine bats and the facing page features Cookie Monster with ten cookies and ten pigeons on a park bench. She pointed to the pigeons and correctly identified them as birds. Then she pointed to the bats and also said, "birds." I said, "no baby, those are bats," and an epic discussion was born. She is totally confused. I have tried explaining it to her a hundred different ways, but really, "Bats are mammals, and birds are, well, birds" doesn't go over well. "Bats have live young and birds lay eggs?" "Bats have fur and birds have feathers?" Um, yeah. We've tried showing her pictures online, to no avail. Given that she just won't let it go, I dug into my keepsake box and pulled out the stuffed bat (it's a Ty beanie baby) that I used to hang from my rearview mirror in my goth-ironic days. I'm not sure if it settled the issue. I got her to call it a bat, but after I walked back into the kitchen I heard her softly call it a bird.

A Tale of Two Thanksgivings

The second of my promised Thanksgiving posts. The holidays are such a time of reflection aren't they? They serve as markers to measure one year to the next. Last year at Thanksgiving, Penny was four months old. I did not yet know that she was allergic to milk. We woke up on Thanksgiving morning to her having an *euphemism alert* upset stomach, but didn't think it was bad enough to cancel our plans. I spent the whole day of Thanksgiving at Tray's grandparents' house changing Penny's diaper about once an hour and worrying that she was hot because her cheeks were so bright red. I kept trying to take clothes off of her, and then put them back on to make her comfortable. It was hot, but her cheeks were red because of the allergy. And of course, what was I eating at Thanksgiving? all those cheese and butter-filled casseroles. The more I fed her the worse she got, and the whole time I thought she had some kind of virus. I was very worried about her (I'm a worrier by nature), and I felt torn between trying to comfort her and keep her close with the demands of being around family that obviously wanted to pass her around and spend time with her too. Plus, she puked on her Aunt Marsha - who didn't mind at all, but still. (Penny used to throw up with every feeding, but I didn't know babies didn't just do that. I had no idea it was because of the milk allergy.) It was a stressful experience, but it didn't end there. Later in the afternoon, we travelled on to Troy to have Thanksgiving dinner there that night. The trip was ok as far as I recall (although she didn't sleep in the car as usual). But that night - that night!! - oh, my gosh, that night. It was awful. Up until that point she'd been reliably sleeping through the night for two months, but that night she woke up every thirty minutes and was miserable. We slept with her in the bed with us for the first time and I was awake all night with worry and caution because I was afraid to sleep with her. Meanwhile, her *ahem* bathroom troubles only got worse (because, again, I'd eaten what? cheesy casseroles with cheese for supper). The next morning she screamed, and I mean screamed for what felt like a solid hour trying to get her to go to sleep for a nap. The only way she finally slept at all was for Tray to hold her in his arms in the recliner. She didn't want anything to do with me. She was so miserable. After lunch (of cheesy leftovers), we headed home to Tallahassee. And I still get tears in my eyes thinking about it. You guys, I hope none of you ever have to go through anything like that. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. To hear your child scream unconsolably for two-plus hours and not be able to do anything at all. Nothing - beyond pulling over every twenty minutes or so to change another soiled diaper. And the screaming never stopped. I don't mean crying or protesting. I mean screaming in hysterical agony. Mercifully for her, she finally fell asleep about five minutes away from Tray's mom and dad's (one of the few times she has ever slept in the car). We were supposed to stop back by there on the way home, but if you had just been through what we had just been through I can promise you you would not have stopped either. You'd have had to have been a monster to even consider it. I got her home and called the after-hours doctor's office and things went from there. All in all though, it was the Thanksgiving from hell. We never attempted to drive with her all the way to Troy again until just last week because I couldn't bear to put her through that again. The difference from last year to this was phenomenal though. She's still not a great traveller, but it wasn't bad. She slept fine in her pack and play at my mom's and the big meal at Tray's grandparents' house was so, so, much better. What a difference a year makes!

So, anyway, here's a picture from this weekend when we went down to the creek. She's holding Tray's fly-fishing rod.

And Yet, So Little Has Changed

So Much Has Changed

This is a picture from April of this year. Tray's cousin Francis took a bunch of photos and she gave us a disk of them this past weekend when we were in Georgia again. I can't believe how different Penny looks in these pictures. I can tell it is her, but wow it's almost like a different baby.

Penny with her cousins Clint, Natalie, and Bennett. Owen was present, but not particularly keen to be photographed at the time.

Venison

Penny did like deer! She ate almost a whole (small) slice of tenderloin. She just kept stuffing piece after piece in her mouth and would not eat any apple or squash. She is definitely on a meat kick this week, and we are so glad it now includes deer.

Turkey Day Catch-Up

Here is the first of a couple of posts to catchup on recent Thanksgiving-related activities. We went up to Troy a week early to celebrate Thanksgiving because I had a job interview at AUM (Auburn University in Montgomery). I did fine, but it was pretty clear that they have an inside candidate for the job (an existing adjunct instructor). So even though they aren't "making a decision" until this week, I am not holding my breath. But, hey, I got an all expense paid trip to Troy for Thanksgiving. And I got kidnapped to tour the archaeology lab featuring the collections from Fusahatchee and all of David Chase's collections. That, plus the lasagna from Mr. G's was totally worth it. Also, we took Penny on the trip. She has pretty much dropped her afternoon nap now (she still takes a morning one) and that made it a lot easier to travel with her. Before, it was very hard to find a long enough stretch of time to travel. If we tried to travel during nap time she would just get increasingly hysterical because she would be so tired but couldn't sleep in the car. But now that's not much of an issue anymore and we are down to just run-of-the-mill "I hate my carseat" fussiness. She had a ball playing with all the stuffed animals around the house up there. At one point we turned the tables on her and piled all the animals onto her (instead of her piling them all on us). Here she is, looking adorable, and kissing the polar bear.

I see...

Penny's new thing is to say "I see..." whatever. She has said "I see Daddy" before, but today she was pointing out all kinds of things including "I see a dog" when reading one of her books. She is just changing so fast. I swear she picked up maybe 10 new words today. It's MADNESS (one of our fav's)! In addition to using sentences more and more (Boo ride the horse), one of the coolest developments is her ability to tell me things that she wants. This afternoon I was eating a bowl of Crispix with rice milk. -- Incidentally, as a consequence of going dairy-free for so long there, I have learned that different cereal tastes better with different types of milk. Banana-Nut Cheerios and soy milk are awesome. Rice milk goes great with Crispix and various Kashi cereals. Lucky Charms really needs to be plain old cows milk. Anyway. -- I have read that babies/toddlers like rice milk because it tastes the most similar to breastmilk. Penny kept asking for a "bite" of my cereal and she was just slurping up the milk off the spoon, although of course the milk was by then Crispix-flavored. But then, she started asking for "apple," so I cut her up some. She'd ask for apple and then she'd say "bite" when she wanted cereal or "spoon" when she just wanted to slurp the milk. It was SO cool to be able to give her exactly what she wanted to eat with each bite, and I'm sure cool for her too.

Also on the eating front, Penny is no longer a self-imposed vegetarian. Over the last two weeks she's started eating meat and is in fact kind of on a meat jag this week, somewhat shunning other things in favor of meat. She's eaten ham, chicken, turkey, pork chop and pork loin (in fact, "pork" was one of today's new words). Oh, and some spaghetti too. I need to make a beef roast to see what she thinks of that now. We're planning to eat some of the deer Tray killed this weekend tomorrow night, so hopefully she'll like venison too.

Bossy

When I change Penny's diaper, after I have the clean one on her she often will try to open the diaper back up. I have to tell her no a lot. Recently, when I do tell her no in that situation, she will shake her finger at me and say "nnnnno". It's really funny - and hard to keep a straight face when I'm trying to get on to her.

Also, she likes to say "hush" a lot. Our next door neighbor has a yip-yap dog -- a jack russell terrier I believe -- and Penny heard him barking today and kept saying, "Hush, Dog." She's so bossy!

Horsey

If you lay down on the floor, Penny will climb up on top of you and say "Horse" and start bouncing up and down as though you are, in fact, a horse.

She also loves to give us kisses - and hugs too. She gave Tray and I each no less than 50 kisses tonight at bedtime. And this morning she laid across my stomach and said "hug". It was a nice way to wake up.

Two Words

Penny is definitely using two word sentences now. For along time she'd occasionally put together two words, but we'd always dismiss it because we thought we were just hearing things, and we couldn't get her to repeat what she said. These "hearing things" incidents have been increasing in the last week. I've heard her use the possessive "my" in front of things quite a bit, but again kept dismissing it as hearing things. She's been saying "bye-bye" to specific things, like, "bye-bye duck." I was pretty sure she said "more milk" the day before yesterday. Last night she said "boo dance" (roughly translated: make Mr. Bear dance please). I still wasn't prepared to say she was using two word phrases. This afternoon when I got home from work I was taking her upstairs to change her diaper and she proclaimed, "Up babies!" which is similar to what Tray often says when they are about to go upstairs. I thought, "oh, she's just repeating that." Then, I laid her down on the changing pad and she said, "Up, please." She's been saying those two words a long time but not often together in a phrase. Still, I thought, "fluke." Then, as I took her shoe off she said, plain as day, "shoe off." At which point I dropped the pretense that she wasn't talking in two word sentences. This was driven further home for me as we walked back downstairs. We startled Mullet, and Mullet meowed really loudly. Penny looked at her and said, "Hush, cat!"

Another shot

I took Penny in to get her H1N1 shot today. My friend Kelly had the swine flu and she said it was the worst sickness of her adult life. It's been hard to find any place that has the vaccines available though. Luckily, Penny's pediatrician had some of the shots for young kids like her (but they did not have any of the nasal spray kind for older kids). I am very relieved to have her vaccinated. Oh, and she barely even cried. She pouted for, like, 30 seconds, but that was it. She's a tough cookie. :)

Maclay Gardens

Sunday we went to Maclay Gardens and had a really nice time. It was very quiet and there were only a few other people. Penny was very humorous in that she kept standing up and sitting down over and over again. It seemed like she liked how the thick grass felt as a cushion. But then she kept sitting down on all kinds of surfaces. Every time we came to something new she'd plop down butt first -- dirt patch, brick walkway, pile of leaves, you name it. It was like she had to experience what it felt like to sit on different surfaces. But the grassy area just outside of the Secret Garden was the funniest in that she kept standing up and plopping back down over and over and over (and over). I think she liked how it felt. Here are some more photos of her in the gardens.

Turtle Mama Baby

Penny loves to play two distinct games right now. The first is what we call "Turtle Mama Baby" which involves you the adult sitting on the floor while Penny brings you anything and everything that is not nailed down (seriously, she'll bring you leaves and carpet lint). When she hands you whatever it is she will either say, "mama," or "baby," unless she happens to be handing you a turtle in which case she says "turtle." It's kind of crazy bizarre, very Penny, and actually pretty fun.

The other game she plays is "Where's Penny?" which is, as it sounds, a version of hide-and-seek. Only, she doesn't necessarily hide all together. In fact, she'll peek so that she sees you and I am pretty sure sees you seeing her, but she doesn't "appear" until she pops out and opens her mouth up really wide. At that point you are free to exclaim, "There she is!"

To demonstrate, this is Tray playing both games at once! Where's Penny?

There she is!

River Run

Modeling behavior seems to be a very good method of getting things across to Penny. I mentioned that we kind of got her used to her life jacket by wearing ours around. Well, she wasn't a big fan of mittens until I put them on my hands (and made them talk like puppets). After that, she let me put them on her and she wore them for almost five minutes (!) at which point they really started getting in the way of playing and she took them off. I'm going to have to put a string on them when the cold weather really sets in I'm sure, but this was a good start toward her getting accustomed to them.

We've also been letting her play in the boat in our yard so she gets used to that. Today we took her on a boat ride on the St. Marks River and she loved it. We stayed out over an hour and she was totally comfortable. Here are a couple pictures.

Wood Stork

Yesterday, a wood stork landed in a dead pine tree in our yard. I was alerted by the kids next door and Penny and I went out to check it out. Amy thought it was a crane, but she didn't know. They were all asking me, so I pulled out our handy-dandy Audubon Society "Field Guide to North American Birds" and discovered that it was a wood stork. Wood storks are an endangered species in North America. There are only about 5 to 6 thousand breeding pairs in the US (5 if you ask fish and wildlife, 6 if you ask south Florida developers), so it was really cool to see one, let alone have one roost in our yard. The bird stayed in our tree overnight and did not leave until mid-morning. I was concerned that something might be wrong with it since I read that they are very social and live in large groups. They also mate for life. I emailed someone from fish and wildlife this morning and he told me that he figured the bird would move on shortly (which it did) and that unless it stayed the rest of the day, it was probably just in the area looking for fish. They frequent the St Marks NWR and there is a breeding area on Lake Lafayette up by Chaires, so I figure it was probably passing through en route. It was a very large bird - over three feet tall, and kind of funny to see it perched on its wading bird legs and feet up on a tree branch.

Halloween

I sent around a snapfish album with Penny's Halloween pictures, but here's a image for the blog to commemorate the occasion. Halloween is without a doubt my favorite holiday. I can't wait until next year when she'll be old enough to trick-or-treat for real.

Molars

Penny is getting her two top molars right now. Just one more to go and then hopefully a break before the canines.

K

I've noticed Penny has learned the hard "k" sound and is favoring words that have that sound. She likes "rock," "sock," etc., as well as "cow". I noticed tonight that she wanted to say "duck" a lot too. She's always pronounced it more like, "duct," but this evening she was making a point to say it with the hard K at the end like she was testing out the new sound. Language is really neat. Pete (my old linguistics professor, and fly-fisherman extraordinaire) would be so proud. That wasn't one of my favorite subjects, but now I find it fascinating.

Halloween Flashlights Recalled

Halloween flashlights sold at Target have been recalled. I saw these just the other day. Apparently, they can overheat and cause burns. Scary!

Are Those Shoes Too Big for Your Feet?

Lately Penny loves to wear our shoes around. These are Tray's slippers.

Wakulla Beach

On Sunday we drove down to Wakulla Beach. It isn't a beach like with dunes and nice waves; it's more a half-moon of sand in the marsh, but the closest thing to beach we have around here. It isn't very far from our house. Tray and I have gone paddling there many times. Sunday afternoon we took Penny and our two dogs down and walked around. It was too cold to get in the water, but we still had fun. There are a million crabs scurrying everywhere every time I've been there and Penny didn't quite know what to think about that. (They scared Lindy - but she's a fraidy-cat.)

This is a photo of Penny checking out the crabs. Most have already run out of the frame, so I'm not sure that you can see any. There are literally thousands running to and fro all over the place though.



Here I am showing her some of the crabs at the water's edge:



Ok, and let me explain this one. She is not on a leash. This is Lindy's leash. Lindy was allowed to run free because (unlike a certain yellow dog who shall remain nameless...Jake!) she can actually listen. Penny is really into chains at the moment. She loves playing with any chain she comes across. So, she begged to hold the chain. I held on to the leash part and we walked pretty much the entire length of the beach like that. I never pulled her along or anything. We just walked together holding onto opposite ends of the leash. I was telling Tray it reminded me of this study I read about from back when they still did studies like this that they couldn't get away with now. They observed school kids on the playground and how in a fenced in area they would use every available inch of the playground, but when researchers removed the fence, the kids clustered together in the center of the playground and wouldn't venture out to the periphery at all, even though those areas had been fine to play in only the day before. The study supposedly indicates how kids need boundaries to feel free. The leash thing really reminded me of that. Before she took ahold of the chain, she kind of wandered around aimlessly and seemed unsure of what to do. Once we started walking like that though it was like she had a purpose and she stayed right with me the whole way. Interesting from a sociological/anthropological perspective I think. So, yeah, ok here's the photo:

Monarch Butterfly Migration

The monarchs are on the move! On their way to Mexico, a bunch stop every year at the St Marks NWR. The monarch butterfly festival was yesterday and we took Penny, my mom, and my grandmother. You can see from the photos how the bushes down there were just loaded down with butterflies. Penny calls them "buttahs" and she seemed to enjoy looking at them.

Baby Einstein Refunds

Just putting this out there in case anyone wants to take advantage but you haven't heard about it. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood was successful in negotiating refunds for anyone who purchased Baby Einstein videos believing the false-marketing that they are educational. The Baby Einstein company had to remove those claims from the packaging last year, but until now they weren't giving refunds to anyone who felt defrauded. Here's a fact sheet with more information on the refund program, or a link to their website if you are interested.

**updated** to say that I don't know anybody who would want to return these videos out of outrage at Baby Einstein marketing practices, but do know a couple who are stuck with these videos because their kids hated them. So now they can return these videos - that are just sitting around unused - for a full refund.

Canadian Rocking Chair

Penny is really liking her rocking chair these days (especially standing up in it, but that's another story). She keeps putting her stuffed animals (usually some combination of her stuffed dog, Mr. Bear, her stuffed turtle, and/or her stuffed bird) in the chair and then rocking them. The whole time she's rocking them she'll say "rock....rock....rock" only when she says it, it sounds more like "wrop...wrop....wrop." Her speaking voice is sometimes very humorous. We joke that she's Canadian because several of her words sound that way. She pronounces boat like "boot" (or how a stereotypical Canadian would pronounce "about"). She says toes like "twos" and "house" and "mouse" with a similar "o" sound. And not that this has anything to do with Canada, but she also likes words that end with the plural "s" - even if there is only one of something, like one flower, she says "flowers" and it's rarely "baby", but almost always "babies". And that word (babies) is pronounced in the most hilarious southern accent. I will totally have to see if I can catch that on tape.

New Photo Distribution System

I'm trying something new for this most recent batch of photos. We use flickr at work with the Florida Memory Project and it just seems to be very successful. So, I have uploaded this latest round to flickr here. Let me know if you love it or hate it and would rather me go back to using Snapfish. Here's a preview pic of Tray and Penny at the pumpkin patch.

Mullet in the Sleeper-hold

Penny has gotten very bad about grabbing ahold of Mullet. In fact, it seems to be her number one way of being defiant right now. She knows she's not supposed to do it, but she does anyway. And she'll often wait until we aren't paying attention to her to do it, like she's trying to get our attention by doing something bad. We have gotten on to her I don't know how many times and I put her in time out twice over the weekend, but she is still doing it. It's challenging.

On the other hand, she learned to say bye-bye last night. She will wave and announce "bye-bye" before walking off in to the other room to hide just around the corner. She waits a second or two and then comes back around with a big smile. It's like she just got the whole concept. Unfortunately, this made me saying bye-bye when I left for work this morning that much worse. :(

New Clothes

These are some of Penny's new winter clothes, and they came in handy this morning - 46 degrees!

Hello Fever

Penny woke up this morning with a 102+ fever from her shots. Yuck. So I stayed home from work again. She's feeling better I think though. I've been giving her tylenol. Anyway, today at lunch Tray and I were finishing up while Penny was already down from her highchair and running around. He and I were quietly eating when we heard, "Helloooo." We both looked at each other and then at Penny who was standing on the other side of the room with my cell phone open and held up to her ear. Now, she's been playing pretend phone for forever, but I'd never heard her say hello before - and the way she said it was hilarious.

15 Month Appointment

Penny had her 15 month doctor's appointment today. It was a week early, but apparently you have to show the insurance company that whatever particular vaccination sequence it is has been completed by 15 months rather than at 15 months. So, we had her appointment today, and she was yet again pronounced to be perfect. She got 4 shots including her flu shot. This coupled with the 4 teeth she is currently cutting made for a cranky afternoon. However, we actually had a really nice day. We went shopping for winter clothes at JCPenney and at Target and then we went out to eat at TGI Fridays for lunch (with our free burger coupons - thanks Woody!). Penny had a fruit plate which turned out to be just mandarin oranges, but she liked them so that's okay. She also sat in the high chair by herself rather than in one of our laps and she colored with the complementary crayons (she can just make marks and things). The burgers were great and we all three had a good time. At her doctor's visit Penny weighed 19 pounds even and is 29.5 inches tall. He asked us how many words she has and I replied that I didn't know - we stopped counting at around 50 or 60. He said, "well, she's doing good then." I said I didn't know, "how many words should she have at this age." He goes, "three or four." Tray and I were like, "Oh." So, yeah. She's doing great.

The Going to Bed Book

Last anecdote of the evening: The last pages of The Going to Bed Book read, "The moon is high. The sea is deep. They rock, and rock, and rock to sleep." Occasionally I will rock the book back and forth when I read the last page, but I haven't done it that often. Over the weekend I was reading the book to Penny - well, actually reciting it to her because she had the book and was flipping pages. I wasn't sure if she was even listening to me, but when I got to that part she took the book and made it rock back and forth.

Covers

Penny's been getting more and more able to tell us when she's hungry or tired rather than just crying and letting us figure it out. She's recently been saying night-night when she's ready to go to bed or take a nap. It doesn't mean she'll necessarily fall asleep any easier, but hey it's a start. She's also become very interested in the covers on the bed. She likes for me to help her "pretend" to go night-night under the covers; it makes her laugh. Tonight, I asked her if she wanted Mr. Bear to go night-night under the covers and she took him and laid him in the edge of the bedspread. It was very sweet.

Touchdown!

This is Penny's baby doll that Maw-Maw got her for her birthday. One day last week Penny was playing with her putting her in the rocking chair. She evidently finally got her like she wanted her because she stepped back and threw her arms up in the air in a perfect imitation. Oh, if only I'd had my camera. This is a picture of Gigi-baby this evening, much after the fact, so you can see what I'm talking about. She had us just about rolling on the floor laughing.

Mullet

This afternoon I was sitting in the floor and Mullet was rubbing her nose on my hand. Penny walked over but kind of hung back a little. Then, she looked at me, patted her own arm, and asked, "Pat?" I told her, "yes, you can pat Mullet." She patted Mullet twice and then grabbed Mullet's tail with the most wicked grin on her face. Oh, this kid is going to be trouble. :)

Random words

Other random words I've heard Penny say in the last few days: flower, chips, Pa, owl, hoo-hoo (to go along with owl), book, boat. I'm sure there are more. I have a hard time keeping up - which is good, I guess. :) Oh! And when she plays with her blocks or her alphabet shape sorting thingy she says "A B D s" It's pretty cute.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Tray! I plan to post again after the fact with a full wrap up of the birthday activities over the last few days, but I wanted to post something today to commemorate the occasion. Happy, happy birthday! We love you!

On the water

I can't speak for everybody, but I do know several people who have had the following experience: You plan on taking your child out on the water and purchase them an appropriately sized lifejacket. You get out on the water and the child screams bloody murder about having to wear said lifejacket. So, in a desperate attempt to salvage your planned first boating you allow them to go without. In none of my friends' kid's first boating photos are they wearing lifejackets (unless they were a lot older at the time of their first outing), and I always sort of chuckle knowing what happened. Anyway, we've been working with Penny on getting used to hers. One day Tray wore his around the house so she'd think it was the cool thing to do, and then she let him put hers on. Last week she asked me to put hers on for her several times. So, this morning we took a boat ride for about an hour. We all three wore our lifejackets and had a really nice time. Here she is gazing at the water:

Ghost cows

And one more thing before I log off to go to bed: she now thinks cows say "boo". Sheep say "baa" and cows say "boo". It's almost too cute to correct!

Oops! Teeth.

Penny is now cutting three teeth at once. She's getting her first molar on the left side, her lower right lateral incisor, and her upper left lateral incisor. I think the lower left one and the lower right molar are not far behind. Poor kid. She's really struggling at night time going to sleep. She's soooo sleepy, but just can't because it hurts. So she's getting lots of snuggles. :)

Also, for the last three days she's been saying "oops" all the time and using it appropriately. Some of the things she says oops for are just downright hilarious (and really good embarrass her when she's a teenager stories). Let me see if I can list a few other words she has picked up (sorry if I've already listed some): boo-boo, pants, Penny (but, sadly, not yet Penny-pants), kiss, gate, and please. We swear she said "read please" when she brought Tray a book on Saturday, but we have not gotten her to replicate it, so it was probably just us hearing things. However, she says please all the time now when she wants something - usually for us to read a book. Oh, and on that, she's also pointing to words in her books and on bottles and things. She knows where the word "baby" is on her lotion bottle, but I know that is just from memory not actual "reading". Anyway, I think it is neat that she is noticing print and not just pictures.

Toys

A week or so ago our next door neighbors who make and sell toys (seriously, that's what they do for a living) gave Penny this:



It's a push toy duck and she looooves it. It is hands down her favorite toy right now. And we like it too - because our neighbors made it for one thing and for another it does not light up, talk, vibrate, or otherwise require batteries and is not made in any way of plastic. Grandparents take note. Wood and fabric.

For a good several weeks now Penny has been getting more and more into playing by herself for periods of time with her stuffed animals and things. She can spend what seems like forever arranging and rearranging her animals and baby doll on her rocking chair jabbering away at them the whole time. The other day I took some pictures of her putting Mr. Bear into her rocking chair. She kept sitting him down and picking him back up and re-placing him again.



I took several pictures of this because I remembered this photo of me:



Same rocking chair, different kid. I'm several months older than she is in this photo, but I thought it was nice continuity. Also, here's another photo of me from the same day. This should give some indication of what Penny's hair will look like in another few months:



Finally, for maybe two months or so (I can't remember exactly) she's been able to stack blocks, but usually only two at a time - maybe three. Two or three days ago I was doing something else and looked up to discover she'd stacked four! And then a little later I went to feed Mullet and came back and found:



I had to take a photo because she'd picked out all the yellow blocks out of the bin and only the yellow blocks (she'd had red and green ones earlier). Plus, I liked the architecture of it. :)

Nice Fall Weekend

We had a really great weekend the last two days. On Saturday we took Penny to the annual “Blessing of the Animals” at the Mission at San Luis. Unfortunately, we arrived after the blessing part was over, but we still got to walk around and check out the living history stuff and all the booths with pet related paraphernalia.
Penny wandered around all over the place carrying with her a hickory nut and a stick. At one point we met a sweet dog who very much wanted Penny to pet him, but she could not decide which of her trinkets to put down in order to do so. It was very funny to watch her think about it. She’d go to sit one item down and then decide against it and try to put the other one down and decide against that and so it went for a good minute or two. She finally decided to hang on to them both and just walked off away from the dog! So, off we wandered stopping every so often for her to exchange whichever hickory nut she was carrying with a new one she spied on the ground. Then, over by the chicken coop we saw this guy:



He’s a Hickory Horned Devil caterpillar and even though my car keys are in this photo, it is hard to get an idea of how massively huge he was. Biggest caterpillar I have ever seen. Luckily, Penny got interested in Lindy and Jake’s leashes around that time (see above) and did not attempt to pick up the caterpillar. After that, a nice lady in a golf cart offered to give P and me a ride, so we went for a golf cart ride back to our car. I love going places like this with Penelope, but I would love it if we lived closer to the places that we went so that she wasn’t stuck in the car seat for 45 minutes plus each way. I’ve often wondered if we lived more like 10 or 15 minutes from places like, oh say, the grocery store, that perhaps she would not mind being in the car seat. Who wants to be confined in a car seat for an hour and a half to go buy milk?

To that end, yesterday we took a ride in the opposite direction from our house and went down to the coast. In this part of Florida we do not have beaches, per se, but instead miles and miles of wetlands. It’s very beautiful in its own right though. We rode down to the lighthouse at the St. Marks NWR (which took approximately 20 minutes). The water there just sort of gently laps up to the coast and is perfect for wading. Before I get into that though, I have to tell this small anecdote. On the way down, I was doing my best to keep her entertained and she wanted to read “But Not the Hippopotamus” over and over again. Well, I would shake my head from side to side as I read the phrase “but not the hippopotamus” and she would imitate me with a very serious look on her face, like, “No Mommy. Not the Hippopotamus.”

Anyway, we stopped at the visitor center so Tray could buy a duck stamp, and they have a small exhibit area and gift shop. The exhibit contains several dioramas of animals and Penny enjoyed looking at those. Then, in the gift shop they had several shelves of kid’s books that she briefly perused and then, then!, she found a bin full of those stuffed birds that chirp the real bird call if you squeeze their talk boxes. You should have seen the huge excited grins she would give us every time we squeezed a different bird.

Once we got to the coast (and all requisite bug spray and sunscreen had been applied) she had a ball walking around in the water with her pants rolled up. I wish so much that we’d had a swimsuit for her (or, technically, myself since she could have gone nekkid) because she kept trying to go out deeper into the water. She loved it! The thing that just melted my heart though was every so often as we walked around she would look up at me with this look of just total adoration. It was like there was so much love in her face when she looked at me that I thought my heart would just stop beating right there. Everyone deserves to be looked at like that at least once in their lives, and she kept looking at me like that over and over again!

After we’d been there a little while, we decided to leave the Refuge and head over to St. Marks to eat a late lunch at Riverside. Riverside is an open air restaurant right on the St. Marks River. You can even boat to it (which we have in fact done before). This is going to sound bad, but Penny had never been to a restaurant before. Well, technically she went on my birthday when she was 6 weeks old, but not since. In our defense though, we don’t eat out and didn’t before we had her so it’s not like our habits changed. Anyway, I was a little anxious as to how it would go. I wasn’t sure if she’d sit through a meal, but it was great! They had those restaurant high chairs and we got one for her, but she freaked out and got all clingy when I tried to put her in it, so she sat in my lap instead. And she didn’t squirm even once. She just sat there and ate and pointed out the seagulls and people watched. I was greatly impressed. It was a big day and she took a nice nap after we got home. We all had a really fun weekend. I love doing stuff as a family!

Behold! Pictures: