Sick

I am sick. Yuck. But since I am stuck here on the couch, I thought I'd update the blog with another picture. This is from Sunday when Tray got back from alligator hunting. Penny was so excited to see him and plopped down in his lap wanting him to read to her. I had to take a picture because the whole time he was reading to her, she had the biggest smirk on her face. The photo doesn't do it justice.

2001: A Space Odyssey

These are best viewed with the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey in mind.

Bedtime Ritual

Penny often does things that surprise me. A couple nights ago it was to help me rub lotion in on herself. I had kind of gotten away from putting lotion on her after her bath because she really didn't seem to care much about it and in fact seemed to be sort of annoyed by it like it was just one more thing she had to sit still for. So, if she seemed particularly squirmy or in a hurry to get to her books, I wouldn't put any on her. Well, that evening I had put her diaper on and she was sitting up in my lap with a book as I prepared to put her pajamas on and she started rubbing her tummy with her hands and looking up at me. I asked her if she wanted me to put some lotion on and she did it again. So I poured some in my hand and she smiled really big and stuck her finger in the lotion and attempted to rub it in. Now at night after her bath I ask her if she wants to put some lotion on and she always makes the motion like she's rubbing it in. It's so cute. I had no idea that it was anything she cared about, but like I said, she surprised me.

Playground

Yesterday I took Penny to the playground at Optimist Park in the Indianhead neighborhood. There was a meetup group there and we met three other moms and their kids - one 2 year old and two 3 year olds. All the other children noticed Penny, but Penny was much more interested in the playground itself. She loved the slides and the steps going up and down onto the play gym. I didn't want her to do those things by herself yet so I got quite the workout going up and down with her and I didn't really get to talk to the other moms much. But, I still think we'll go back again because she did seem to have a really good time. She lit up like it was Christmas every time we went down the slide. We ended up staying just a little over an hour because she got obsessed with a game of volleyball being played by some grownups. She saw their volleyball and really, really, really wanted to play with it. She kept trying to run out onto the (sand) court and get in the middle of their game. Nothing I did could convince her that she didn't want to be on that volleyball court so I just decided to call it a day. One of the other moms said that her 3 year old went through a phase to where if she drove by the playground and there were people on the volleyball court, she wouldn't stop and would keep going to another park because he would only be interested in joining the game. I have to admit though there was something very comical about this little 13 month old running out onto the volleyball court in the middle of a bunch of grown Asian men waving her arms and pointing to the volleyball like they were supposed to let her play.

My Birthday

My birthday yesterday was fun. I had a nice party at work celebrating with two co-workers, one whose birthday was the 1st and one whose birthday was today, the 3rd. When I got home from work, Tray helped Penny to meet me at the door with a bunch of helium balloons. He cooked us supper - steak and shrimp - and it was so good. He also bought me a small birthday cake at Publix and had them decorate it to read, "Happy Birthday Dr. Sam." It's a marble cake with oreo cookie icing. It tastes very much like an oreo dirt cake, only with actual cake instead of just oreos and pudding. At supper we baked a sweet potato as a side dish and cut up some for Penny. Penny does not care for sweet potato and never has. I've tried giving it to her many, many times and she just does not like it. On a related note, she's recently discovered pockets. She had a pocket on a pair of shorts she was wearing one day and Tray kept putting one of her finger puppets into her pocket for her to take back out again. She thought it was great fun. She would try to put the puppet in herself, but was funny in that she'd lift the bottom of her shorts leg and put the puppet up into her pants that way rather than down into the pocket. All this to say that she kept taking the pieces of sweet potato and stuffing them into her pocket (which was really just where she had turned up the cuff of her shorts to make a pocket). I started to say she was saving it for later, but it reminded me for all the world like the cliche of the kid hiding their vegetables under their plate or placemat. She was trying to be so secretive about it too and wait until we weren't looking. I tried to look over her high chair tray at it and she covered everything up with her hands really fast. It was hysterical. Tray and I were dying laughing at her.

Here is a link to some snapfish photos of her and also from my birthday. The first few are from when we went to the park two weekends ago.

Groove

Penny was so cute a couple days ago. Tray picked her up while he was listening to his iPod and she took one of his ear buds and put it up to her own ear to listen to the music. It's another one of those instances where she did something that makes her seem so grown up. She even started dancing. Too funny.



Another cute thing she did today was to bring me her bib which was in the living room from when Tray had fed her this morning. I took it from her and said, "thank you," but that wasn't what she wanted. She took it back and attempted to put it on herself which was the cutest thing because she was doing it right, but she tried to put it on around her tummy more like a grown up would wear an apron. And while she was doing this she looked me in the eye with a look that said, "you understand what I'm going for here, right?" So, I put it on her the right way thinking okay, she'll wear her bib around the house for awhile. But as soon as it was on she said very emphatically, "Bop!" and proceeded into the living room to the boppy laying on the couch. She wrapped her arms around it and laid her head on it and said "bop" again all the while looking at me to be sure I understood. I can take a hint. :)

August Updates

On Sunday we took Penny to Dorothy B. Oven park here in Tallahassee. I don’t know why I’ve never been there, but it is a beautiful little park with lots of little ponds, and fountains, and landscaped stream beds. We packed a little picnic and let Penny run around. It was such a pretty place and the weather was gorgeous.

In development news, Penny can say “fish” now, only it comes out more like “sish.” I think she might also have said "cup" yesterday, but I will have to see if she does it again. She also started copying Tray saying "shh" when he's trying to put her to sleep.

Also, recently she’s been practicing dropping things. She’ll take a ball and hold it up and out away from her and then very purposefully let it go. It’s fascinating to watch because you can see that sometimes she has to concentrate to make it happen, but she's getting better and better at it. Also, for a couple weeks now she’s been bringing things to Tray and I and taking our hand in hers and placing whatever it is into our hands. If your hand is all balled up, she will take it and open it with her hands and then put whatever it is she has into your hand. It’s very cute.
Another cute thing I've noticed her doing is "brushing" her hair. She'll take her brush and put it up to her head although she can't really brush with it yet.
She's also getting really good at pointing out her body parts. If you ask her where her feet are she'll bend over and touch her toes. She knows where her knees are and her tummy. She's still not clear on facial features though. If I ask her about her nose, she'd rather show me Mr. Bear's nose instead.
She really understands a lot of what we say to the extent that it kind of scares us sometimes. It can be a little unnerving from time to time. Like I can say something casually to Tray about needing to get something out of Penny's diaper bag and she goes over and gets it out and brings it to me. She gives us the heebies doing something or another like that at least once a week. It's a good thing - but just strange sometimes. Hard to describe.

Yesterday, I took her to visit my friend Laura Lee and her son Arran. Arran is 1 week younger than Penny. He isn't walking yet, but he can really crawl super fast. They seemed to have a good time and were very cute together. She did really well sharing the bear she was playing with, but I think that's because she loves to bring us stuff at home so she was just doing the equivalent for Arran. Once he took her sippy cup and was playing with it. I could tell it confused her and she seemed to want it back, but she didn't make any big deal out of it. In fact, at some point she did get it back but immediately gave it back to him. So I guess the whole sharing thing is probably a later development, but it seems like she's on track to be good with that.