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.