Two Words

Penny is definitely using two word sentences now. For along time she'd occasionally put together two words, but we'd always dismiss it because we thought we were just hearing things, and we couldn't get her to repeat what she said. These "hearing things" incidents have been increasing in the last week. I've heard her use the possessive "my" in front of things quite a bit, but again kept dismissing it as hearing things. She's been saying "bye-bye" to specific things, like, "bye-bye duck." I was pretty sure she said "more milk" the day before yesterday. Last night she said "boo dance" (roughly translated: make Mr. Bear dance please). I still wasn't prepared to say she was using two word phrases. This afternoon when I got home from work I was taking her upstairs to change her diaper and she proclaimed, "Up babies!" which is similar to what Tray often says when they are about to go upstairs. I thought, "oh, she's just repeating that." Then, I laid her down on the changing pad and she said, "Up, please." She's been saying those two words a long time but not often together in a phrase. Still, I thought, "fluke." Then, as I took her shoe off she said, plain as day, "shoe off." At which point I dropped the pretense that she wasn't talking in two word sentences. This was driven further home for me as we walked back downstairs. We startled Mullet, and Mullet meowed really loudly. Penny looked at her and said, "Hush, cat!"

Another shot

I took Penny in to get her H1N1 shot today. My friend Kelly had the swine flu and she said it was the worst sickness of her adult life. It's been hard to find any place that has the vaccines available though. Luckily, Penny's pediatrician had some of the shots for young kids like her (but they did not have any of the nasal spray kind for older kids). I am very relieved to have her vaccinated. Oh, and she barely even cried. She pouted for, like, 30 seconds, but that was it. She's a tough cookie. :)

Maclay Gardens

Sunday we went to Maclay Gardens and had a really nice time. It was very quiet and there were only a few other people. Penny was very humorous in that she kept standing up and sitting down over and over again. It seemed like she liked how the thick grass felt as a cushion. But then she kept sitting down on all kinds of surfaces. Every time we came to something new she'd plop down butt first -- dirt patch, brick walkway, pile of leaves, you name it. It was like she had to experience what it felt like to sit on different surfaces. But the grassy area just outside of the Secret Garden was the funniest in that she kept standing up and plopping back down over and over and over (and over). I think she liked how it felt. Here are some more photos of her in the gardens.

Turtle Mama Baby

Penny loves to play two distinct games right now. The first is what we call "Turtle Mama Baby" which involves you the adult sitting on the floor while Penny brings you anything and everything that is not nailed down (seriously, she'll bring you leaves and carpet lint). When she hands you whatever it is she will either say, "mama," or "baby," unless she happens to be handing you a turtle in which case she says "turtle." It's kind of crazy bizarre, very Penny, and actually pretty fun.

The other game she plays is "Where's Penny?" which is, as it sounds, a version of hide-and-seek. Only, she doesn't necessarily hide all together. In fact, she'll peek so that she sees you and I am pretty sure sees you seeing her, but she doesn't "appear" until she pops out and opens her mouth up really wide. At that point you are free to exclaim, "There she is!"

To demonstrate, this is Tray playing both games at once! Where's Penny?

There she is!

River Run

Modeling behavior seems to be a very good method of getting things across to Penny. I mentioned that we kind of got her used to her life jacket by wearing ours around. Well, she wasn't a big fan of mittens until I put them on my hands (and made them talk like puppets). After that, she let me put them on her and she wore them for almost five minutes (!) at which point they really started getting in the way of playing and she took them off. I'm going to have to put a string on them when the cold weather really sets in I'm sure, but this was a good start toward her getting accustomed to them.

We've also been letting her play in the boat in our yard so she gets used to that. Today we took her on a boat ride on the St. Marks River and she loved it. We stayed out over an hour and she was totally comfortable. Here are a couple pictures.

Wood Stork

Yesterday, a wood stork landed in a dead pine tree in our yard. I was alerted by the kids next door and Penny and I went out to check it out. Amy thought it was a crane, but she didn't know. They were all asking me, so I pulled out our handy-dandy Audubon Society "Field Guide to North American Birds" and discovered that it was a wood stork. Wood storks are an endangered species in North America. There are only about 5 to 6 thousand breeding pairs in the US (5 if you ask fish and wildlife, 6 if you ask south Florida developers), so it was really cool to see one, let alone have one roost in our yard. The bird stayed in our tree overnight and did not leave until mid-morning. I was concerned that something might be wrong with it since I read that they are very social and live in large groups. They also mate for life. I emailed someone from fish and wildlife this morning and he told me that he figured the bird would move on shortly (which it did) and that unless it stayed the rest of the day, it was probably just in the area looking for fish. They frequent the St Marks NWR and there is a breeding area on Lake Lafayette up by Chaires, so I figure it was probably passing through en route. It was a very large bird - over three feet tall, and kind of funny to see it perched on its wading bird legs and feet up on a tree branch.

Halloween

I sent around a snapfish album with Penny's Halloween pictures, but here's a image for the blog to commemorate the occasion. Halloween is without a doubt my favorite holiday. I can't wait until next year when she'll be old enough to trick-or-treat for real.