New Word

And I forgot - she started saying "duck" today. She has a duck finger puppet that has really long tags on it. She loves tags so she loves the duck. Tonight she was playing with it while we ate and she started saying it. We didn't believe it at first, but we tested her and sure enough, she says duck now. I guess she is going to go through all of the animals before she gets to Mommy. :)

All she wants to do is dance

Penny looooves to dance. The other day she started dancing to the sound of ice cubes in a glass. I'd say she is very musically inclined. She doesn't dance all the time, but pretty frequently. Here she is grooving to Daddy playing the guitar. Sadly, she doesn't dance when I play the fiddle. I wonder why! :)




And here are two pictures of her "helping":

First Words

In addition to da-da, today Penny said "cat". She's probably been saying it for a couple days now, but we didn't understand what she was saying until yesterday and she's definitely been saying it all day today. Tray tells me he thinks she is also trying to say "uh-oh". She's got the "uh" part down, and once completed the "oh" portion. But I can point to Mullet and ask her "Who's that?" and she'll say "cat" which sounds kind of like cat and kind of like dat. But we know what she means. :)

Here's a couple pictures from the weekend:

Our 7th anniversary was Monday and Tray bought me carnations. I added some hydrangeas from our yard to the bouquet:



This is Penny wondering how come she didn't get to go out on the boat this weekend. Yeah, why is that? We have the boat, the motor, the lifejackets, swimsuits and sunscreen. But, no boat trip. Actually, the motor is in the shop but hopefully we can go one afternoon this week.

Defense

My defense was a success! I have some revisions to do (which is par for the course), but provided I finish that before mid July, I'll be graduating in August. I am glad to have gotten back on track and that I am finishing up. There have been a lot of stops and starts. Some people have asked me if I am relieved to finally be done with school. I feel like I've been done with school for several years now. It's been a long time since I've sat in a classroom. It's just that I've been ABD (all but dissertation) for so long, but I haven't really thought of myself as being in school for two or three years now. Plus, I've worked the entire time I've been in grad school and never really felt like I was "in" school. Grad school was always just this segment of who I was and admittedly it was often very far down the priority list. That attitude isn't always conducive to getting done I know, but on the plus side I will walk out of there in August without owing one cent in student loans (and how many PhDs can say that?). And, on top of that, I have a gorgeous 10 month old too!

She continually surprises me. Today, Tray brought her up to meet me after my defense and she got to meet three of my five committee members. Tray stands her up on the conference table and she puts on her patented Penny smirk and totally works the room. She had everybody oohing and aahing. She is such a ham. I don't know why I think of her as shy. She is kind of reserved for a minute or so, but boy it doesn't take long for her to come around. She kept waving at my major professor, Phil. It was very cute. Some photos after we got home this evening:

Today

Today is Penny's 10 month birthday! And, in a little more than 4 hours I will be defending my dissertation. What a day!

Hiking at Leon Sinks

Sunday morning we went hiking at Leon Sinks Geological Area. We all had a really great time in spite of a few mosquitoes. It is so much fun getting out and doing things as a family. Penny really enjoyed herself. She "talked" quite a bit as we walked along - conversing with the trees I suppose - and would occasionally laugh at things we couldn't see. We stopped at Big Dismal Sink and I fed her and then we split an apple (I confess I ate the lion's share). It was a great little outing. Here are a few photos, and one from a few days ago too.

*Milestone alert* Penny knows how to wave now! She's also chewing on her hat strap in this photo - so she can also do two things at once. :)



This is where we stopped to eat lunch. Sorry the sinkhole isn't in the background - you wouldn't have been able to see much anyway. It's a long way down and I doubt a picture would have done it justice.



This is us walking along. She so loves her Snugli carrier. She starts kicking and gets all excited as soon as she sees it because she knows she's going somewhere. She enjoyed facing outward like this for most of the walk until the end when she got tired and wanted to turn around and snuggle. The umbrella is for the sun (and for the thunderstorm we could hear in the distance) so we didn't have to get all gooped up with sunscreen. She might be waving in this one too, but it's hard to tell. She waved her hands around and clapped a lot as we were walking.



And finally, from a few days ago, here is one of her petting Lindy.

A Round of Applause

Penny really started clapping today, and she's sooo cute doing it. Also, this morning she and Tray had a dance party. I was sad I missed it at work, but he told me she danced and danced this morning to the musical stylings of Old MacDonald. Her dancing reminds me so much of my friend Anderson. He could imitate the frat-boy-at-a-Widespread-concert so well. Cap down low on your forehead, shaggy hair sticking out underneath, head down and shake side to side. Penny's dancing is the exact same motion. It's hilarious to me.

On a more personal note - I'm defending my dissertation next Thursday the 21st. Doctor of Philosophy, here I come!

Walker Wagon

Yesterday I decided to try Penny with the walker wagon again and she walked all over the place. I held onto the side of it for her to keep it from going too fast, but every time we've done it now I hold on less and less. This is a video from this evening and you can see that at some points I take my hands away completely. We did the wagon once yesterday evening and three times today, and every time she is markedly better at it. I literally watched her progress as the day went on. I'm not sure if she'll be walking on her own before her ten-month birthday or not, but I would guess she'll be walking in the next few weeks. She's having a ball!

Silliness

Some silly pictures from the last few days:

Penny with Mullet in the sleeper-hold. I actually was trying to capture a picture of Penny gently petting Mullet, but as I took the picture, she grabbed her like this. Needless to say, I continue to be grateful for Mullet's patience.



Daddy said we had to put ALL the toys away:



Baby in a basket (note the patented Penny smirk):

New Tooth and Standing

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that she is getting her top right tooth too! So far so good on that - she hasn't been fussy, but I said that last time and she got fussy after I said it, so knock on wood.

Today, she stood without holding on to anything for a good 20 seconds or so. She was petting Jake (while we were holding him still) and she just let go and stood there for a bit before realizing she was doing it and sat down.

Dance Revolution

Penny started dancing today! Here is a hilarious video of her dancing along to her daddy playing the guitar.



She's been so much fun the last few days. On Wednesday, she started clapping a little bit. It's just like with talking right now though; she's doing it, but doesn't really "mean" anything. She won't imitate me clapping or anything, but just sort of does it spontaneously as though discovering that her hands can do that, and then it is over and she's on to something else. Speaking of talking, she says "da-da-da-da" ALL the time now, but extra-especially when she sees Tray and I'm pretty sure she used the sound to try to get his attention yesterday. Tonight after she finished nursing she laid back on the boppy and gave me Mr. Bear's paw to kiss over and over and giggled every time she did it. I was wanting her to go to sleep so I was trying hard not to laugh, but it was sooo cute. Also today she pulled every single book (which is not very many) off her bookshelf in the nursery and had a ball doing that. And we had our first call to poison control after she sampled some yellow insulation. Turns out it isn't hazardous and all I needed to do was wash her mouth out. So - fun all around. Can't wait to see what she'll do tomorrow!