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As Penny's first birthday approaches, I have gotten very introspective on my experience of this past year. This is a great article reprinted on the la leche league's website called "So I Nursed Him Every 45 Minutes". It is really good - and accurately sums up my experience with nursing thus far, although I never fed Penny every 45 minutes. Well, maybe the first two or three weeks. Mostly, she ate every hour. :) If anything I think I tried too hard to set up a schedule because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I never let her go more than 10 minutes past the time she started letting me know she was hungry, but if we have another one, I will definitely not worry so much about how long it has been since the last feeding and just feed her when she gets hungry. I regret that I worried about schedules in early weeks with Penny and didn't listen to myself and do my research sooner. Funny how my introspection turns to things I feel guilty about. Perhaps later I will post about all the things that I feel good about.

Walking

Penny is really walking now. She can go across the room by herself, albeit slowly. What is really fun though is how she walks from person to person. She starts slow, but once she reaches a certain point, she just launches herself into your arms with a look of sheer joy on her face, and you have to be ready to catch her! She is so much fun these days. I've taken several videos recently, but haven't been able to post them. Here's one from last week before she was walking as well as she is now. This one just shows her being able to stand up on her own. She's obviously been doing that for awhile, but this is the first time I got it on camera. At the very end she looks at the camera and just after the 60 second time limit was reached and the video cut off she said, "Bop".



And here is the main event - Penny walking from me to Tray. You can see how excited she gets at the very end when she crashes into his arms.



Thursday and Friday, my mom and grandmother came down and visited. Here is a picture of Penny with my mom at her computer. The computer isn't actually on - Penny was just having fun pushing buttons. She does enjoy looking at pictures of ducks on the internet though.



And this is a picture of Penny disoriented after waking up from a world record 2 hour and 40 minute nap!!! Never in 11 months has she ever slept that long. It was amazing. I thought she must be sick or something. She didn't take a morning nap, so she "doubled up" on the afternoon one. BUT - today she didn't take a morning nap either and only slept 45 minutes in the afternoon despite circumstances being the same both days. So she only slept 45 minutes all day today, and was kind of grouchy at bedtime. It's never the same day twice with Penny - but I like the sponteneity. :)

Photo Catch-Up and Napping News

I may jinx us by saying so, but Penny has been taking nice naps the last week or so. Most days she takes two 45 minute naps - one in the morning and one in the afternoon, like a normal kid. Sometimes, she'll even sleep for 1.5 hours in the morning. A napping Penny is a bizarro Penny, but I for one am glad she's napping with a bit more regularity if only so people will quit telling me how much she "should" be sleeping. Man, I hate the "shoulds."

I mention the jinx possibility because of the car seat incident. Way back on March 23, I bragged on this blog about how she'd starting sleeping in the car seat sometimes. She hasn't slept in the car seat even once since I posted that. Oh well. And lest you think her inability to sleep in the car is something new, here is a photo of her on the way home from the hospital at 3 days old:



Her eyes were open most of the 30 minute ride home that day.

As promised in the title to this post - here are some photos to catch-up for the lack of them in the past few posts, including cloth diaper pics.

Father's Day and 11 Months Old

We celebrated a great first Father's Day today. I made Tray breakfast in bed - his usual Sunday morning grits, eggs, and sausage, plus coffee and a glass of chocolate milk. Then, after Penny's nap and lunch we went in to town and, among other things, took Penny to Borders. Today she turned 11 months old. We bought her two books...and a stuffed dog. We hadn't intended to buy a stuffed animal, but she picked it out and loved on it so much we just had to buy it for her. We had the cashier cut the tags off of it (I hope beanie babies don't come back into fashion b/c it is a ty brand), and she handed it back to Penny when she was done. Penny gave her the sweetest smile that melted everyone around and all the cashiers and everybody pretty much went, "awwww" in unison. Let's hope she only uses her powers for good. :)

Brush

Penny tried very hard to say "brush" last night and this morning. I tried to show her how to say it by exaggerating the sounds, and last night she attempted the "sh" part. This morning I was relating the story to Tray and we tried again. She tried to do the "b" part (b/c she can say bop), but that's as far as she got. You could tell she was trying sooo hard, but just couldn't get her mouth to do what she saw us doing. Her determination was very cute.

In other news, my laptop died. I didn't really lose much, although there were some very recent pictures that I hadn't backed up. I've got two weeks until my final dissertation has to be in to the university (with all the changes made that were suggested at my defense), so it's a pain to have it die now. I'm typing this on Tray's computer. I don't feel comfortable downloading a bunch of photos to this computer since it is technically his work computer, so even though I took some photos of P in her new diapers I'll have to wait to post them. However, here's a link to the brand I bought. I love the company I bought them from. They give "reward points" for purchases and 500 points gets you a $30 gift card. The cool thing is I wrote a guest blog post for their blog and they "paid" me with 75 points! Next month I am thinking I might try some of the FuzziBunz. They are almost as popular as the bumGenius and would probably be moreso, but bumGenius definitely has better marketing and distribution. I'd love to try to sew one of my own, but I think putting elastic on the leg holes is beyond my current capabilities.

The cloth diapering world in Tallahassee is so funny to me. Anybody who is anybody in town cloth diapers. It is almost like a status symbol to them, so there are many, many people who cloth diaper. On the other hand, anybody in El Salvador the neighborhood we live in would look at you like, "You do what now?" if you mentioned cloth diapers. However, it would be really nice to meet some moms who fall in the middle ground between the ones who push the $1,000 strollers but carry their kids in this anyway, and the moms who live out here.

Bop

Today's new word is "bop" for the boppy pillow we use for nursing. Tray also sometimes uses it to give her her bottle. I've always called it the boppy, but he's been calling it the bop-bop and she picked that up. As with other words she says, I'm not entirely sure she always means it when she says it, but I know sometimes she does and sometimes she's just practicing the word. She's also been saying something like "ubum" for awhile now, but we can't figure it out.

With walking, she's now taking up to 4 steps before having to sit down, and she'll walk towards things other than Tray or me. She's now standing up inside quite frequently too, so we don't have to go outside to get the same effect (which is good since it was 100 degrees with an even higher heat index here today).

And finally, I leave this as food for thought. Disposable diapers take between 200 - 250 years to decompose in the landfill. Which means - wait for it - every single disposable diaper ever used is still in a landfill somewhere (provided it made it there in the first place). Mind-blowing, right? I got Penny a couple of new pocket diapers recently and once I get them washed up I'll post a pic. They are super cute.

Junior Museum

Today, we went to the Junior Museum (aka Tallahassee Museum of Natural History. We really wanted Penny to see some ducks because she loves them so much. Sometimes we will pull up a picture of a duck on the computer, and she gets so excited and starts exclaiming, "duck! duck!" (which sounds more like "dutch! dutch!") and she'll stare so intently at the screen. The museum has a zoo of native species, and always one visiting "exotic" animal - an ocelot this time. All of the animals are unreleasable; they would not survive in the wild. Penny had a good time and very humorously categorized every animal as either "duck," "cat," or "dog." I don't think she recognized the alligator or the turtles as animals, so her classification scheme held. Sadly, we did not see any of the albino squirrels this trip. There are several populations in the area and one lives in and around the museum. Maybe next time.

The museum also has a model 1880s farm with reenactors. In one building a lady was canning tomatoes and we stayed to watch. P was very funny about not wanting to go inside. She sat down right in the doorway and would go no further until she felt comfortable and then came in. I am proud to say that I learned nothing from the canning exhibit that I didn't already know. It did however make me want to grow some more tomatoes.

I'm trying something new. Here is a link to a Snapfish album of our trip. These are just a few of the animals we saw and places we went.

First Steps

Penny took her first unaided steps this afternoon. For some reason when she is outside she will stand up on her own a lot more than she will indoors. I noticed this and I figured the more time I had her outside the quicker she would walk. She kept on standing up over and over again but sitting back down. Finally, I got in front of her and encouraged her to come to me and she took a short little step before sitting down again. We got her to do it a few more times taking a little bigger of a step each time. This evening in the bedroom she was half walking/half falling into my arms just like in the video of her cousin Tessa over on Sarah's blog. It won't be long now!

Pink Moratorium

In light of P's adventures this weekend - she has asked that there be a moratorium on all things pink. She's concerned that her wardrobe doesn't reflect her outdoorsy personality, and would like some clothes in more neutral colors. She asked that I spread the word. Just following orders.

Cliche

If you thought this only happened on tv commercials - you are wrong.

Yay! It's a Camera!!!:



You know, Mom, this stuff is pretty neat:



Want some?:

Weekend on the Creek

We spent the weekend on the farm and took Penny on her first boat trip on Spring Creek. This is Tray's dad's boat. Our motor is still in the shop because evidently in St. Marks "I'll let you know something tomorrow" means "I might get to it sometime this month." Anyway, I won't say Penny had a good time - but she didn't have a bad time either. She mostly just didn't much notice anything except the boat interior and all the fish scales and assorted other sundries she tried to eat. The creek was pretty muddy from all the rain so we didn't try to go swimming, but maybe later on after the water clears up again we can go.

Waiting for the boat to be ready:



We didn't keep the umbrella up the whole time, but it was a nice occasional break from the sun.



We stopped at a sandbar and got out and walked around.

More Sounds and Words

I meant to write about this yesterday, but forgot. We have heard her say “hi” and I could have sworn she said “bye-bye” to me this morning, but will have to see if she duplicates that to be sure. She is definitely saying “up,” but not as a question or a command. It’s more like a statement of fact. :)
She says it once I have already picked her up. As with cat, in which she places emphasis on the ending “t” sound, she really stresses the “p” at the end of “up.” The other thing she’s been doing since last week, but I keep forgetting to write it down, is to say “aaaah” after she drinks something as though it was very refreshing. Tray got her doing this. Whenever he takes a sip of something in front of her, he always finishes up by saying “aaaah” and she started copying him. In fact, she seems to try to copy a lot these days. When my mom was here and Penny was eating in her highchair, my mom would say stuff like “yum, yum, yum” or “num-num” or whatever to encourage her and she’d try to imitate it all. She’s like a little sponge these days.

Kisses

Who knows what inspired Penny to first kiss Curious George, but now she is a kissing machine! She kisses all her toys and Tray and me enthusiastically. She has these finger puppets (I think I've mentioned before) and you can tell her to get the frog or the parrot or whatever and she'll get it and give it a kiss. What's so cute about it too is that she makes a big mmmmmm sound as she kisses - sort of like how you would fake kiss - mmmm-mwah, only without the mwah at the end. She has this peek-a-boo book that Aunt Elaine gave her and she loves opening the flaps. The hidden things have portions of them that you can touch and feel - like the elephant's ear is furry, etc. Until a few days ago, she would lift the flaps but showed no inclination to feel any of the objects except for the teddy bear on the last one. Starting this weekend she started wanting to touch everything and yesterday she starting wanting to kiss it all. Here she is kissing the elephant ear. Crazy kid! :)

Visits

The last few days have been really busy for us with lots of visits from family. My mom and grandmother came to visit on Saturday and spent the night. Then, on Sunday night, Tray’s mom came down to stay because Tray went out of town yesterday. Penny was shy at first, but quickly warmed up. She enjoyed dancing for everyone and I know she enjoyed seeing everybody.

We’re pretty sure she’s saying “ok” now. She’s saying something that we can’t discern, but I think that’s what she is trying for. I would think “ok” would be too difficult of a concept for her, but then I realized that I say ok all the time, as in: “Ok. Let’s go change your diaper now,” or, “Ok. Here you go” (when handing her something), or, “It’s ok” (when trying to calm her down when she cries). So, she hears the word all the time. I think she’s saying it without really understanding context (especially since I use it in so many different contexts) and that is what makes it hard for us to figure out what she’s saying. I’m pretty sure she said ok over and over again reaching for her cup yesterday, which would make sense if I say “ok, here you go” every time I hand it to her. It’s the only thing I can figure. She may also be saying “up” but again not really in correct context so it is hard to say.

I am really amazed at all of the things that Penny does. I know all kids do stuff like this, but it just always surprises me because their intelligence really sneaks up on you. It seems like one minute they are this wiggly little blob of a thing with innocent eyes and the next they understand everything you say and look at you with knowing eyes. Yesterday, I was in the bedroom folding clothes and she was on the floor playing with the computer modem (keeping her away from electronics is a losing battle). I said outloud, “Ok Penny I need to go put these in the bathroom,” and as soon as I said it she immediately stopped what she was doing and crawled to the bathroom and waited for me. I had made no move in that direction – I was still folding the last towel – so she crawled to the bathroom because she heard me say it. Wild. And then, her grandmother brought her a Curious George jack-in-the-box. I would have thought she’d be scared of it, but she isn’t. She loves it! Well, Melba showed it to her in the car and then we brought it inside. We sat it down and she immediately tried to turn the handle. I thought that was pretty cool that she remembered how it worked from being shown it in the car. Unfortunately, she still lacks the dexterity to make it happen. However, once you get George to pop out she does the cutest thing – she leans in really slowly and kisses him! Here’s a picture:



I wish I could have captured a better one, but she tends to get distracted when the camera comes out, so this is the best I could do. Once she has done that, she then tries to close the lid to make him go back down (but she can’t manage that either – you have to actually push George back inside). I think it is so neat though that she understands how it works. On the kissing front, later that night I read her Goodnight Moon as we do every night (sometimes two or three times!) and when we got to her favorite page, “goodnight little mouse” she leaned in and kissed the mouse! Too cute.

She’s growing and changing so fast. I really love having this blog as a place to record everything because I am not otherwise I diary keeper and I would never remember this stuff. I enjoy going back through from time to time and reading old posts. We love our Sweet P.

Here are two pictures with Tray's mom and my grandmother. We didn't get a picture of my mom.