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.