2011 Christmas Program

Penny had her Christmas program/recital at gymnastics on Sunday afternoon. I am posting a video for any relatives who want to see. Even though I cut a lot out, it is still a long-ish video. She did so great! See if you can spot her flashing Tray a thumbs-up at the end. I was worried she'd be shy and back out, but except for looking for us a couple times there at the very beginning, she seemed to be fine. We are so proud of her!

Future Foodie?

Turns out I didn't do so well with the posting all month thing.
Anyway. We had a very nice Thanksgiving. We spent the day of at Tray's parents' house, and then had another dinner on Saturday at my mom and grandmother's. We have/had lots of leftovers from both places. Penny surprised me by correctly identifying the house of origin for each leftover when served each thing. The first evening we ate a plate full of things from Melba's dinner. Penny said this came from Georgia. I was a little surprised because we'd had pretty much the same things at my mom's, but not too surprised because I figured there must be enough difference to tell it all apart. But then, I made chipped ham in a white sauce (aka Ham SOS) for supper last night using ham from my mom's. We had ham from both houses. But she said, this came from Nana's. How did she distinguish the ham? It tasted the same to me. And anyway it was covered in sauce. Hmm. I think this calls for some future food experiments. :)

November 14: Penny's Perspective

"My Family" by Penny Earnest

Ok, so we'll just ignore the fact that I forgot to post yesterday on the 13th. We'll just consider that like some buildings that don't have 13th floors. (And I always want to say to those building operators, "It's a NUMBER." But whatever.) 

I promised to post some pictures taken by Penny. I have a mint ton of them. For her birthday this year we got her a Kidizoom camera. From the moment she opened it, she has loved it. She took over a hundred photos in just that few minutes after getting it. She kept taking everyone's picture individually and then she'd take pictures of whatever she found interesting: the corner of a piece of paper, the "i" in the word Dictionary, the bathroom faucet. These pictures are so cool, because they give us a glimpse into how she sees the world. The ones that get me the most are those of us taken from her perspective looking up at us. Unfortunately, the Kidizoom is a crap camera (and it has some of the best reviews of the "kid" cameras out there). You have to hold it absolutely still for two seconds after you take the photo or it will be blurry. So, almost all of her photos are blurry. She does great with our "real" camera, but we are obviously scared she'll damage it somehow. She hasn't dropped it yet though. So, we're thinking that for Christmas we are going to get her a $50 real digital camera. And then she can take 20 different photos of the cover of her Lightening McQueen coloring book, and they'll all be in focus. :)

November 12: On Demand

Penny and I love to go to the public library and check out new books to read. We recently discovered the Pigeon books, like "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." I love to read them because the artwork is hilarious and the comedy is all in the vocal delivery. Anyway, the one called "The Pigeon Wants a Puppy" has a wish list on the inside front cover. One of the items on his list is "french fries on demand." Penny loves to quote the pigeon books all the time. And one of the things that has caught her imagination is the phrase "on demand." If you hand her something she'll go, "pepper. on demand," or "water. on demand." She'll get on a whole "on demand" riff walking through the house just calling out stuff. I think it's so funny.

November 11: Veteran's Day

I have many veterans in my life (and one or two still serving). They didn't have to serve, but they did. And I just want them to know how grateful I am to them for making that choice. Happy Veteran's Day.

November 10: Blah, Sick.

Tray has been sick with a cold since last Wednesday. I've been trying to avoid catching his cold, and so far neither Penny nor I have caught it. However, on Tuesday I tried to go swim like normal, and just could not seem to get going. I probably swam half of what I normally do, and in shorter intervals. I chalked it up to poor nutrition that day, and the after effects of having gone running with a (much faster) friend on Monday. She and I were supposed to meet up yesterday to swim after work/classes. Well, I woke up yesterday morning with that distinctive "cold-coming-on" feeling of sore throat and achy legs that I always get with a cold. I stopped by Walgreens on the way to work and took some cold medicine and some tylenol and hoped I'd feel better in time for our swim. By the time I got done with my class that afternoon I was really feeling the sore throat and decided to call things off. When I got home, I took my temperature. Fever? Check. I looked in the mirror at my throat and immediately sat down and googled images of strep throat. My throat looked exactly like strep. So, I went to the doctor this morning. The nurse said, "It's strep." The doctor said, "It's strep." The strep test said, "It's not strep." So I was sent home with a diagnosis of viral tonsillitis. And all I could think was, "here we go again." Back in 1999 I had three bouts of this back to back and the last one put me in the hospital for almost 4 days. Here's hoping I wake up tomorrow feeling better. And that I don't actually have strep despite the test that I am now spreading throughout the household. Ugh.

November 9: Resolutions 2 Months Early

Or maybe not. I've got a Wiccan friend who posted "Happy New Year" to her facebook on Halloween, so I guess New Years Resolutions could be in order now depending on your personal calendar - lol!

Seriously though, I had to fill out my professional goals for the 2012 year for human resources recently. It got me thinking along those lines in other aspects of my life. I've never really done New Years Resolutions much because for whatever reason I always thought of those as "negative" resolutions - like you were supposed to resolve to give up something or not do something. And it always seemed that people were choosing something very broad like "weight-loss," or "save more money," or "stop smoking," or something similar without any associated ideas about how to go about those things. But, the form at work was different. It required you to pick achievable (and specific) goals for each of the three areas: teaching, research, and service. And then at the end of the year you have to fill out another form explaining how you did or did not achieve those goals. It's a better system than me sitting there going, "I'm going to get more research done this year" (the standard new year's resolution style of things). Instead, I have to say exactly what I am going to do this year - publish this or that article, attend this or that conference.

Put another way, I am henceforth viewing New Years Resolutions as yearly "bucket lists" of things I want to get done during that year. I'm still working all the categories out, but thus far my fitness goals are the most clearly defined. They were not until just a day or two ago when I found out about a 15K race in Dothan in January (that's about 9 miles). There's a half marathon in Bainbridge in April, so that 9 mile distance would be a good intermediate distance between 6.2 miles and the 13.1 miles for the half. So, for 2011, I achieved my base goal of running in a 5k (3.1 miles) race. My goal for the rest of 2011 is to run a 10k in December (I've run 5 miles a couple times now, so I have to add another mile between now and December). Then my 2012 goals are the 15k at the end of January, and the half in April.
I'm not far off of swimming a mile in the pool, so achieving that before the new year is another 2011 goal.
My swim goals for 2012 are still nebulous, but so far include swimming in a swim meet. Any swim meet. I just have no idea how to go about that one.
I still very much want to do a sprint triathlon (1/4 mi swim, 12-20mi bike (depending on race), and 3.1 mi run). All very doable on their own, but put together I don't know. Plus, I still need a bike! It feels good to have goals though, and accountability for those goals, which is what this post is all about. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

November 8: Pose

I didn't have the photographic evidence of her new hands-on-hips pose until my mom sent me her pictures from when we stopped by on Halloween. All I can say about this is that we are sooooo done for when she gets to be a teenager.

November 7: Cars2 Review

Before I get to the "review," we went in for Penny's second post-hospital ekg and echo. Everything looked good. We have to go back in a year, and probably one more year after that, but her odds of anything happening are pretty slim.

So last night I used a free-rental code for Redbox and rented Cars2. We don't rent movies much b/c we aren't really a tv/movie watching family, so this was the first time we'd ever had anything like a family movie night. It was fun. I bought an inflatable mattress for camping b/c the last couple times my back had been getting too sore, so we blew it up and "camped" in the living room. We ordered pizza and ate it and turned the movie on. Penny was so excited, you guys. Like, she could hardly contain herself, excited. She sat on the end of the mattress right in front of the tv and was soooo cute in her enthusiasm. As for the movie? Tray and I loved it. It was a very good movie. You could almost forget it was a cartoon, or that animated cars were the characters. Plus, I just love Michael Caine. However, Penny could not get into it. I was uncomfortable with the amount of guns and shoot-em-ups going on right off the bat, since we don't usually let her watch anything featuring guns or battles. She didn't seem to notice or maybe realize what was going on with that, but she did notice that none of the characters from the first movie appeared on screen for what felt like forever. She kept asking when they were going to race, and even when a race scene would finally arrive, they'd cut away to the "spy" storyline for most of the race. It was a disappointment. I had been planning to get the movie for her for Christmas, but I'm glad we checked it out first, because now I know we can wait a few years before getting it. While it is a very good movie from a grown-up perspective, it's definitely not for three year olds. Or at least not this three year old. She's ok with it all though. She got enough exposure from it to know the characters now instead of just saying, "oh he's from the second movie. We don't have that one." And so far today with playing with her cars figures and/or reading her cars books she's been happy with that as a takeaway even if she didn't seem to love the movie itself.

November 6: Hands on hips

Lately Penny has started wanting to stand with her hands on her hips all the time. I know she didn't get it from me, because I tried it and it felt really unnatural. Guess who does stand like that? Tray. It's so cute to see her standing there like that, especially when she's telling you about something. She looks so comically grown up.

November 5: Post-football

Wow! What a game between Alabama and LSU. I know I was supposed to be rooting for Bama to win so we could beat them in the Iron Bowl, but I find it so difficult to root for Alabama. I'm happy with the way the game turned out except for that one LSU penalty, which was definitely not cool. Penny watched the first half of the game with me until she fell asleep at halftime. It worked out well. Normally I don't get to watch them.

And now for something completely different:

At the Pike County Fair a few weeks ago. Penny's second merry-go-round ride (I rode with her on the first). She loved it. I only had enough money for two rides or she would've done it again and again. Next year I'll have to spring for one of those unlimited ride armbands or something.

November 4: Wherein I wish I had an iPhone4

Here are some recent photos taken with my Palm Pre. It's the first smart phone I have ever owned. We splurged on them when me moved to Troy last year. Like most things I own, I will use something until it completely breaks before buying another one. I'd had my old phone for maybe seven years - almost the whole time we'd lived in Tallahassee. I am definitely not the type to buy a new phone every year or even every five. But, man, I want one of those new iPhones. In the right light conditions my Pre takes ok pictures. At any time outside of those 5 to 10 minutes a day that the light is just right, they look like this. But, oh well, they still serve their storytelling function.

One of the first Halloween functions we went to this year. It was the weekend before Halloween at one of the local churches. There were lots of games, at which Penny won these sunglasses and an enormous "ruby" ring. She reminds me so much of my Aunt JJ in this picture for some reason.

After I took her photo, she insisted that I put the items on so she could take my picture.  Elizabeth Taylor would be so proud.

Here we are at another church Halloween festival. They had a petting zoo that Penny loved. I know it's not a great picture, but it's the only one I have of her in her costume and looking in my general direction.

We went to that festival with Ally and her mom and dad, and stayed for the spaghetti supper after. The girls of course had a hard time staying put at the table. Here they are playing nearby.

November 3 - Candy, Day 3

Oh my, the candy. Note to self: you cannot expect to finish a swim workout after having consumed Halloween candy all day. Not gonna happen.

So, this past weekend Tray and I ran our first 5k together. I've been running since last winter, but had not done an official race yet (time and finances being key issues there). Tray's only recently started back running, but used to run before so he actually runs better/faster/farther than I do. It was a tiny little race down in Brundidge. I think maybe 15 or 20 people ran/participated. We didn't come in last, but came close to it. We pulled up to the race site as the race started. (We thought the race started at the festival, but it actually started about 2 miles away.) We had to run to get our numbers and pin them on mid-stride. We had a really good time just being together and running, though. That was the best part, the togetherness. I run while he watches Penny, and he runs while I watch her. Our first race together was actually the first time we've ever run together, period. It was very nice. Here's to more fitness-oriented togetherness!

November 2 - Qualifiable

Quantitative methods = statistics
Qualitative methods = interview people

I'd say Penny's behavior isn't quantifiable, but I think I mean qualifiable. Right? Is that even a word? Outside of competitive sports? Anyway.

I was reading this great blog post about how parenting is wonderful because it gives you the first four years of your life back. You get to see them grow and change and go through all the developmental stages that you don't remember yourself. Those early milestones are easy to mark - when they first roll over, first walk, say their first word, first jump on two feet (*ahem*). The other stuff is less quantifiable (qualifiable?). Every so often Tray and I will remark on how much more "grown-up" Penny seems. This is now funny to us because we keep saying it every few months, and obviously she must not have been all that "grown up" the last time or we wouldn't be noticing the change this time, yet we keep feeling that way. I can't fully express what it is that makes me sit up and take notice that she's "changed," but she has. I don't know when exactly, or even what exactly, but I know it has to do with how conversational she is. Like, I guess I keep expecting simple short answers to my questions, but she busts out with a narrative - and I'm sitting there like, "where did you come from?"  Her ability to think logically has really progressed recently too. We can play "Blues Clues" together where I'll give her three clues and she has to figure out whatever it is that I'm asking her about. I mean, I don't make it difficult or anything, so she always gets it right, but I don't think she could have played it a few months ago. And she's always working her little brain to outsmart us. For example she likes going to the bank b/c she gets a lollipop. Well, obviously, we don't have anything to take to the bank very frequently, but she will ask if we can go every other day or so. She asked yesterday and Tray told her he didn't have anything to deposit. She told him we should go to the bank, take some money out, and then go and deposit it so she could get a lollipop! I guess I should be thankful she didn't tell us to work harder to make more money - lol!

November 1 - Halloween Recap

Today is the first day of the national blog posting month wherein you are supposed to post to your blog once a day for the whole month. I never discover that it is NaBloPoMo until several days of it have already passed, so I am excited to get in on it from the start this year.
November 1 seems like a good day to start since it offers a nice chance to recap Halloween. Sadly, I have no pictures of Penny from trick-or-treating currently in my possession. Her friend Ally came over along with her parents (they live out in the styx sticks)  to trick-or-treat our neighborhood. I fixed us some black bean and butternut squash chili (Halloween or no, it was still meatless Monday after all) and made a pan of flat cornbread that I cut out into ghost and pumpkin shapes using my cookie cutters. The meal got rave reviews (and by "rave reviews" I mean everyone going back for large second helpings).
We stopped by all our neighbors first and then made the loop through Woodland Circle where I usually go running. There weren't a whole lot of houses participating, but more than enough for a 3 year old and 2 year old. On the return approach, Penny actually said that she was tired of trick-or-treating. Renee and I laughed that we couldn't remember ever having had that problem. :) Most of Penny's candy "disappeared" to Tray and my respective offices overnight, but we left her with a solid handful of things. She got a couple little bags of skittles and reece's pieces that are nice b/c we can dole them out one skittle at a time for a week or more - although the red dye 40 in those does concern me. Her most favorite thing in the world though are Tootsie Rolls and she got a ton (since she could often pick what she wanted out of the bowls being presented). I did regift the large size ones and about half of the little ones to my college students, but she has enough of the little ones to last a while. It was a good haul, especially combined with everything she got from Haunted Sorority Hill, and the harvest festivals at Southside Baptist, First Baptist, Park Memorial Methodist, and Bush Memorial Methodist that we hit up in the week preceding - lol! 

Now this is taking eco-consciousness to a whole new level

Penny's latest complete-and-total freak-out trigger is.... littering? She becomes concerned when she sees a piece of loose paper or a napkin or anything like that blowing around on the side of the road when we're driving. She always asks who it belongs to and if they know they lost their napkin/paper/whatever and if they are going to come get it. Last week at our play date with Ally we were eating a pop-tart and it was windy and the foil pop-tart wrapper blew off the table. Penny hopped down to go get it, but the wind kept blowing it so that I guess she thought she'd never be able to catch up to it. She lost her ever-loving mind and had a massive melt-down. Even after I successfully retrieved the wrapper and assured her it was all fine, I still had a hard time calming her down.

Then Tray took her to our property this afternoon and they flew a kite for the first time. They were apparently having a really good time, until the kite caught on the side of the barn, the string broke, and the kite blew into the pond and got hung up on something so that it didn't float on over to the bank. Tray said Penny's freak-out was horrendous; he almost had to yell at her to reach her enough to even listen to him so she could calm down. And I know it wasn't (just) because she was upset they had to stop flying the kite. It was way beyond that. I think it has something to do with things not behaving in ways she expects them too - or in ways beyond her control. I'm not sure, but I would love to know how to help her out with this one.

(Oh, and also loud noise, while we're on the topic of advice-seeking. Every single time an ambulance or fire truck blows a siren anywhere within the Troy city limits, Penny asks very worriedly if it is coming here. And I always tell her that no, it is not. The hospital is not very far from here, so we hear them daily. And we have the same conversation. Every. Single. Time. She also still runs from the vacuum cleaner, power tools, kitchen appliances, or anything else that is "too much loud" -- including people. The child has never had a smoothie because I can't operate the blender in her presence. We've also had to leave the playground because they were mowing the field next door. Although, to be fair, I haven't worked with her much on this one considering that I also dislike people/things that are "too much loud.")

Field of Flowers

Sunday morning Penny and got up and drove out to the Rabbit Pond to eat breakfast with Tray (who'd camped out there once again). We spent the morning walking around and generally enjoying one another's company. I've uploaded several photos here to show. Penny took a bunch of pictures with our camera, some of which are surprisingly good. I'm gonna put together another post to show a couple of the funnier ones. So, these are mom or dad taken photos. 

Eating grits, eggs, and sausage at basecamp.

Picking flowers.

Artie! Actually, I think this is one that Penny took.

The big field looking south.

Penny emerging with her spoils.

Here Daddy, yellow flower #85 for you.

This is the background photo on the blog. All the fields on our property look like this - yellow and pink flowers everywhere.

Our land came complete with dilapidated shooting house. It is missing part of the floor (maybe it has an escape hatch?). I think the picture shows how pretty the flowers are too.

Loving on Lindy.

Redesign

I may not leave it this way, but I've been playing around with some of the design settings in the "updated Blogger interface." I selected a different template and changed the background image to use a picture of the wildflowers on our property. They are so pretty. I'm going to try to upload some other pictures that we took this weekend - that include people and not just flowers!

Friends

 These are some pictures of Penny and her friend Ally at the local playground. For Penny's birthday, we'd invited her gymnastics class which at that time consisted of 3 other girls in her age group and 2 in the mommy-and-me class. The only person to rsvp was Renee with her daughter Ally from the mommy-and-me class, so we basically just had a play date with cupcakes for Penny's birthday. Since then we get together at least once a week, and most weeks two times. Ally is two, but they are about the same size so they seem to be the same age. They get along great. It's reassuring to be around a two year old to realize that Penny had similar social skills at that age, and see how far she has come in a year. Penny really looks forward to getting together each week, and they sometimes "write" letters to each other that us moms mail for them. It's too cute.

Here they are about to slide simultaneously.

But Penny jumps the gun and goes first. Unrelated: she has chosen to wear this Lightening McQueen shirt for several get-togethers causing me to feel compelled to reassure Renee that Penny does in fact own other clothes.

Swinging together.

"Playing Hands" at the hand wall.

Both skeptical of Renee and her camera.

In the gazebo.

Finally smiling for Ms. Renee.

Conversing in the tunnel.

Yesterday we got there early and saw two other friends from gymnastics: Abigail (4) and Anna (3).  They started yelling, "There's Penny," almost before I had her out of the car. They go to the playground every Friday with their "Grandy" - their great-grandfather who keeps them each Friday. He used to be Chair of the Education Department at Troy, so we talk sometimes. Friday was the first time I'd ever seen Penny go off and play with someone by herself like this. I almost could have gone and sat down and let her play except that she would look for me to "check-in" every other slide or so. Ally's too young to be willing to play without parental involvement, so Renee and I are usually out there with them. Anyway, it didn't last long, but it was a glimmer of things to come I'm sure.

Later in the morning after Ally got there, another deep conversation in the big tunnel. 

It's so fun to watch Penny grow and change and develop her social skills.

The Rabbit Pond

Well, no major announcement to my immediate family around these parts, but we bought some land! Back in June! Did I not mention that? What with every thing else going on?

Anyway. We bought 60 acres northeast of Troy. It has a five (-ish) acre fish pond on it. On Friday we caught 10 big fat bream in about 3 minutes. The pond has lost a lot of water over the course of the drought. You can see the exposed bank behind me there on the right. The vegetation line is where the water used to be. This picture is from late July and the water is even lower now. The fish feeder has since been removed from the dock, and one good thing about the water being so low is that we can get out there and do some dock repairs/small child safety adjustments (railing!).


We also have a creek. Well, technically, we have two. We have the small unnamed one that feeds the pond (and is really more of a swamp), and we also have a creek that flows through the property on the east side. Little Buckhorn Creek to be exact. Here is a certain small-ish type person to show it off:

The creek has part of a historic dam on it (the other part presumably blew out in a flood at some point in the past), and further down it has a beaver dam on it. We've seen him (her?) out and about. They can get up to 75 lbs which is as big as Lindy. I think this one is getting close. I saw it come out of the pond and go across the pond dam one evening. We also have a bobcat that I have not seen, but Tray has.

This picture is on our property looking north toward our gate, so this is the first area you come to driving in (only turned around looking back at the gate). That black speck up the road is Lindy. To her right is an open area with lots of pretty flowers, and then immediately to the left of the foreground is another open field.

The picture below is just to the right of where I was standing taking the picture above. Tray picking a few wild grapes off a small vine for Penny to eat (she loves them - especially the seed spitting part).

These are kind of in reverse order, but let me take you back into time. This is Penny running up the road from further south in our property to get to where I was to take the grape picture. Oh, and Artie too.

To the south of the two small open fields is a patch of piney woods. I love piney woods because there is very little understory. You can walk around without walking through stuff. And the ground is so soft and cushy from the pine straw accumulation.
This is the edge of those woods coming into the "big field." Note the cedar trees. No buying a Christmas Tree this year!
On your way into the big field is a massive grapevine covered in grapes. We've been eating on them for weeks now. I made a huge batch of jelly - some of the finest I've ever made. These are some seriously good grapes.
This is the gang seated across from the vine just eating and eating and eating grapes. Everytime we go out there Penny asks us to stop to pick some. We usually stop and get some down and then carry them with us on to the pond. And then at some point during the trip she'll request to walk from the pond back up to the vine so she can get some more. It's actually a long walk. I usually end up carrying her at least part of the way back.
And this is the "big field." When you come around the corner to it, the beauty can take your breath away. Right now it is covered in wildflowers. There is yellow and purple as far as you can see. And I know as the leaves turn colors, it's going to be even more pretty. The wood line you see in the background is the creek buffer.
If you go on around that curve, the road cuts through the woods going toward the pond. Here is Penny with her walking stick there.

Finally, here is Penny in the hammock under our pole barn on the hill above the pond.

I've got loads more pictures of the place, but hopefully that'll give some idea of what it is like. We have enjoyed it so much already, and we haven't really been out there all that much. It has been so hot and dry that we haven't wanted to, but now that the weather is cooling off we've had much more reason to head out there. We camped out under the barn this past weekend, and fully intend to camp there again this weekend. We love, love, love having some of our very own land. It makes all those years (and still counting) of relative "depravation" - no new furniture or decore and no eating out or cable tv - so, so worth it. We have sixty acres (!) and a creek and a pond (and a bobcat!) to call our own. Maybe we'll build on it one day, or maybe not, but for now it's just so wonderful to have land. Our land!

Goodbye, Jake

This has been tough to sit down and write. A little over a week ago now we lost our Jake-dog. He had been in declining health for some weeks with what was probably chronic kidney failure. He was only 8 years old. As it was with Catfish, it is particularly hard to lose a pet at such a young age. We certainly did not expect to lose him so soon. I'm having trouble writing this is no small part because Jake was Tray's dog. Jake followed him everywhere like a shadow. He was cool with me, and protective when I was pregnant with Penny, but mostly I was "she who brings food when Daddy's not here."

Tray always tells the story of meeting Jake. Little known fact: Jake's actual, original name was Bentley. "Bentley" was a Christmas morning gift dog. The couple who bought him soon realized that a lab puppy needs a lot of attention and in the absence of it will chew your house to shreds. They decided to find a new home for him. Tray went to check him out. All the adults were standing in the kitchen talking, "Bentley" came running around the corner, leash in mouth, and ran right up to Tray as if to say, "ok, take me home now." We renamed him Jake and he's been part of our family ever since.

He was a cute little puppy with very sharp teeth. He aggravated Lindy to no end. The way he lapped water out of his dish was one of the most adorable things I've ever seen (babies included). He knew how to fetch a stick on the very first throw. I had to teach Lindy to fetch, to sit, to stay, even to swim. Jake just knew how to do those things as a matter of instinct. The only thing he wouldn't do is jump into the back of the truck. He wouldn't even jump into the backseat of my Civic (which is inches off the ground). We'd spend entire afternoons trying everything we could think of to encourage him to jump. We built elaborate jump practicing stations out of tree stumps and boards. Finally, finally one day he could do it.

He was the best cat-defender around. If ever Catfish or Mullet escaped the house, Jake would always attempt to corral them and/or herd them back inside the house. If we ever let the cats out for a supervised walkabout, he'd hover right near them because he knew they weren't supposed to be outside.

When we first moved to our house in Woodville, Jake's foot got injured somehow. We never did find out what happened despite repeated searches of the yard. He was in surgery for several hours to repair it, and it was a very near thing that he got to keep his foot. The vets had him in one of those e-collars to keep him from chewing off his bandages. He made it clear that he wanted the collar off, and we took it off, but he never attempted to chew the bandage even once. He allowed me to wrap his foot in a plastic bag every time he had to go out for a bathroom break so his bandages wouldn't get wet in the grass. Once the bandages came off, he never tried licking the medicine off. He was a very patient dog.

Penny always liked hugging him because he was so soft. Lindy and Artie are both wire-textured. Lindy's kind of like an otter: slick and short haired. Jake was fluffy and almost more like a golden retriever than a lab (even though he was AKC registered pure-blood lab). Several people mistook him for a golden retriever. He was definitely more golden colored than your usual yellow lab. He was a good hugger.

He was quiet, reserved, thoughtful, lovable, friendly, snuggly, wild-and-crazy on cool fall mornings, and Tray's best friend. We will all miss him very much.

Lions

A quickie before moving on to other things: Penny worries about lions. We'll be talking about what animals might be in the woods or in the swamp or something, and she'll always add, "and lions?" And I'll say, "No, lions live in Africa." Or we'll go to the park and I'll say, "we can see some squirrels," or something similar, and she'll worry, "will there be lions?" Or like one day we were taking a walk in the woods and heard something. Penny asked, "what made that noise." Tray said, "maybe it was a squirrel." I said, "maybe it was a bird." Penny said, "or maybe it was a lion." It's just so darn cute in it's ridiculousness.

Corollary: we were listing swamp creatures one day when we passed over one on a drive and she asked me if there were piranhas in that water. I told her that I sure hoped not.

Aviation Museum

Prior to Penny's birthday we would ask her what she wanted to do for her birthday. Being a fan of Cars, she would ask to take a ride in a helicopter (like Mater). We'd told her that there was a helicopter museum nearby that we'd take her to (it's down at Ft. Rucker). Well, of course she got sick, and taking her to the museum took on even more of an urgency for us -- like we wanted to do this thing for her since she'd been through so much. So, these pictures and video are from a week or so after being home. It was pretty much one of the first things we did after she was well enough to do stuff. iPhoto tells me they are from August 1. You can tell in the video that she was still a bit "peeked." Nonetheless, she had an absolute blast. I wish we'd had the camera out when she first walked in. Y'all, the look of sheer awe on her face was priceless. It was like she almost didn't know what to do with herself. She crossed her arms in like a, "I'm so blown away, I don't even know what to do with my hands," kind of way. We were trying to take pictures with our phones here and there, but didn't get many good ones. I don't think the effect came through, but seeing her like that was so worth the trip. She very much enjoyed playing in the helicopter that they have open for you to climb around in. They also have another one upstairs that you can get in and "drive". That's the video that is attached. Afterwards, we stopped at Dairy Queen and got an ice cream cone (a rare treat).

Why?!?

The why questions may, in fact, be the death of me. Why, you ask? (please don't) Penny will not stop with the why questions. I always thought this phase would be really fun. I'm all scientific. Why is the sky blue? I got this. Light refraction, something something, yadda yadda. No. Penny's questions are more like:
Why is that car yellow?
I don't know, because they wanted a yellow car.
Why?
Why is that car driving that way?
[me making something up] Because they're going home.
Why?
Why is this Piggly Wiggly?
Do you mean why are we at Piggly Wiggly?
No, why is this Piggly Wiggly?
Do you mean why did we come to Piggly Wiggly instead of Food World [like we normally do]?
No, why is this Piggly Wiggly?
[Daddy jumps in:] Because they thought it would be a good name for a grocery store.
Why?

It is maddening, I tell you. Half the battle is trying to figure out what it is that she is actually asking. Most of her questions seem to me to be about motivations that people have for doing things. But if I'm not careful I can launch into a really long explanation of what I think she's asking only to find out that that wasn't what she was asking at all. And a good portion of the time the questions are about things with levels of signifance out of proportion to the urgency of her asking about them. Why is this Piggly Wiggly, indeed?

Back to the Grind

After a rather eventful summer, school starts back tomorrow. It's very bittersweet. I look forward to having a more structured schedule, but even when feeling disgruntled at playing the umpteenth round of Candyland, I relished having so much time with Penny over the summer. I'm going to miss her!

On a side note, we got the bill from Children's Hospital. Her total stay was north of $15,000 - but insurance covered everything except the $300 copay. That feels like a narrowly averted financial crisis! (Especially with no summer paycheck.) Whew.

Check up Visit

Penny saw the cardiologist today. We were supposed to go back to Birmingham, but it seemed so outlandish to drive up there just for an echocardiogram, so we talked to Penny's regular doctor about seeing someone in Montgomery. They took her blood pressure twice, once on her arm and once on her opposite leg. Then they did an EKG. She's a petite little thing, and seeing her laying there on the table shirtless with all those twenty or so cords hanging off of her brought a few tears to my eyes (that I successfully hid), but she did great. She seemed to think it was pretty neat, and the nurse/technician was really awesome. She liked the cardiologist too. He did the actual echocardiogram. She started to cry when he turned the lights off (he didn't warn her first), but she's so used to all of this now that she settled down into quiet resignation pretty quickly. This afternoon she wanted me to take my shirt off so she could put stickers and lotion on my chest (to replicate her experience this morning)! I let her rub some on my tummy. Anyway, everything looked good. We have to go back in three months, and she has to continue on the aspirin for another three weeks or so. We are so, so happy!

P3 Video

I saw one of these year in review videos on someone else's website a long time ago, and kept meaning to try it. I had this almost done before Penny got sick, and it would have been done in time to show at her party (had we had one - can't seem to get anybody together in the same place at the same time to call it a party). Anyway, I just finished it. It pretty well represents the essence of Penny at 2.

Penny is Three!