Tractor

This is a picture from the weekend before last at Tray's Mom and Dad's. This is Penny's first tractor ride. She loves tractors - she gets excited if we see one when we are out driving and she pushes her little tractor that came with her farm set all over the kitchen floor. But, prior to this visit she was scared of the real thing. Her Pa was out driving it and letting Owen "drive" and Penny and I had gone for a walk to see the cows. She and I met them coming down the lane and we hopped in. Penny did not seem too enthused, but I think was a good first step toward future tractor rides. Pa has a really nice tractor with an air conditioned cab and a radio. In fact, Owen implored us to turn on "Alan Jackson" so Pa turned on the radio and we pretended that we were listening to Alan Jackson. :)

Jazz Festival

I have a backlog of Penny photos to post. This is from the Saturday before last (the day after the great scorpion incident). We went out to the Junior Museum for a Jazz Festival. It was too loud for Penny's taste right where they were playing the music, but over at the playground she sat in one of the swings and enjoyed it. She sat stock still for the most part except for her right hand that she bobbed up and down to the beat almost like she was conducting the music. I think she really liked it.

Ohhhhkay

Almost two weeks ago now, on the 12th, I was stung by a scorpion. We've had them in the house before, so I always tried to remember to shake my shoes out before putting them on, especially if it was a pair that I hadn't worn in a little while. I doing so, however, I never saw one, so I admittedly had become a bit lax in the practice. On Fridays we can wear jeans and tennis shoes to work if we want and I had set my tennis shoes just inside the back door because it had rained Thursday afternoon and I'd had them on after I got home walking around the yard. I was late for work and just stuck my foot in without checking first and the pain was instantaneous. I slung my shoe off thinking that it was a wasp (we have kind of a wasp problem around here). Tray wanted to know what had happened and when I told him, he went and got my shoe and shook it out. Out fell a scorpion! A biiiig scorpion. Not one of the cute little inch-long ones I've seen before. So, ok, it wasn't like Hollywood horror movie big, but he/she/it was no joke. I did some immediate googling and it was widely recommended to call poison control so I did. I was advised of what to watch for (twitching, basically) and told that most otherwise healthy adults usually do fine. I went on to work, but I was sick (nauseous and woozy) until lunchtime. And the pain in my foot was unpleasant. It lasted on until the next day and then it was over. No big deal.
Until today. Fast forward twelve (!) days, and my toe decided to get incredibly inflamed and painful and all around angry within a very short time. It was fine when I left for work, but by the time I got to work it was bad. Like, absolutely without a doubt infected bad. So, I called the doctor's office, where of course they had no appointments - and the emergency room seemed rather excessive. I split the difference with an appointment at the urgent care clinic at 1045. Of course, I wasn't actually seen until 1145 at which time my foot was totally normal again. Y'all the thing was turning black at 830 this morning and was all normal and pink and why-are-you-wasting-my-time-and-your-15-dollar-copay normal at 1130. What is up?! Is this normal of scorpion stings? Do I have this to look forward to for weeks and/or months? This is just the most bizarre thing.

The funny and the sad

Penny had a sad afternoon. She had a tummy ache for a little bit. It thankfully didn't seem to last long, but she was upset for an hour or so and cried. But then just about the time that she seemed to have gotten over it and calmed down and we were going outside, I squished her fingers in the door. It wasn't enough to even bruise them, but it was adding insult to injury since she already felt bad and she just cried and cried. I ended up just basically holding her for a long time. The sad part too was her trying to calm herself down by repeating my mantra of "it's ok, it's ok, ok, ok." Then later this evening in the bathtub she was playing and talking and she said, "Penty's ok." It was so sweet and sad too.
But, on a funny note, she also starting saying "how ya doing?" today. She was playing with her stuffed mouse (which you will recall is actually a polar bear) and she said, "Hi, Mouse! How ya doing?" And then when Tray came inside from the grill she said, "Hi Daddy. How ya doing?" Too cute.

More flowers

I love Japanese Magnolias (I have always called them tulip trees for some reason). They are so pretty. It was very cold today here in Tallahassee and I was missing the warmer weather from just a couple days ago, so I decided to post another picture of the flowers to warm me up!

Sass

This weekend Penny asked me for some bagel. As I walked past the kitchen counter I noticed that we still had half of a banana from the day before and I knew that I would have to open a new bag of bagels so I asked her if she wanted some banana. I said, "Hey Penny, how about some banana?" She looked at me and said, "how about some bagel?"
I know she was just repeating me and didn't mean anything by it, but oh my goodness it was funny.

The stuff you never realize

Last night Penny had a hard time going to sleep (harder than normal). I don't think she fell asleep until almost 10, but she got sleepy on schedule around 7. I don't know where the disconnect occurred, but around 8 I she was obviously not going to fall asleep and rather than "fight" with her about it, I decided to just let her get up and play some. We came back out into the living room so she could play with her blocks. After playing for a bit, Tray and I decided we were both hungry and so I fixed us each a small bowl of soup and we had grilled cheese halves. Penny ate some grilled cheese and climbed up on the couch to sit down and have hers. While perched up there, she kicked off one of her dog shoes. Normally when she does that she says either, "dog shoe come off," or (emphatically) "dog shoe down!!" When she kicked it off this time, either I or Tray beat her to the punch and said something like, "oh, your dog shoe came off." Mullet happened to be walking past Penny at that moment and she cut her eyes to us and said, "Mullet needs a dog shoe."