Waving Hi

I keep meaning to mention that I re-taught Penny how to wave hi pretty much the next day after I posted that about how she wasn't doing it anymore. It only took a couple minutes because she copied me right away. However, I made the error of waving in a somewhat exaggerated manner trying to get the point across, so now her wave is pretty exaggerated too. It's really cute though. She often will say "hi" or "hey" when she waves too. And, now when Tray asks her, "What does Mommy say?" she replies, "Hi". (insert eye-rolling here)
Oh, and we've just about got her saying her own name, although it isn't very clear yet. Something that is clear though is "baa". If I ask her, "What does a sheep say?" she says, "baa" clear as a bell. Sometimes I wonder though what she thinks of us going on about all these farm animals that have no meaning to her everyday life. I mean, she's got to be wondering why we seem to think it is so important that she knows what a sheep or a cow says. Crazy grownups.

Things Penny is Not Scared Of, Wednesday Edition

It's a Wednesday tradition. The insect du jour was.... a june bug! Its third attempt at escape was ultimately successful.



(photo from flickr)

Molars

Penny is cutting her molars now. I wasn't expecting that because she still only has 5 teeth - 3 on top and 2 on the bottom. The 4th one up top has been just below the gums for over 2 months but hasn't broken through and I haven't seen hide nor hair of her other bottom two. Her lower left molar is almost completely out though. It's weird that they are coming in in the wrong order, but based on my exhaustive five minutes of google research I guess it's not all that unusual. I can tell they really bother her because she will chew her fingers and sometimes take her fingers and press on the side of her face where her teeth are. Baby tylenol seems to be working though and she loves to have an ice cube in her mesh feeder as well as chewing on regular teething rings. I hope they all hurry and come in so we can have that over with.

Playground Fun

We went back to Optimist Park today for some playground fun - this time with Daddy along too. It was such a pretty day outside with a nice breeze. Penny went down the slides a bunch of times and then let me push her in the swing forever. I was surprised that she didn't say her usual "Up!" within a minute or two and instead swung for a long time. Here is a new album of photos from recent weeks including more of today's playground trip.

Eight

Eight happens to be may favorite number. I don't know why exactly, but if ever I need a good exaggeration I always say some variation of "eight-hundred-thousand" whatever it is. Not sure where or how I picked that up, but anyway. Tray was walking upstairs carrying Penny and he was counting the steps aloud as they went up. He said 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 and then Penny yelled out "8!" I have no idea why only that number, but we've got her trained now. Tray: "Penny, what comes after seven?" Penny: "Eight!" or Tray (really fast): "onetwothreefourfivesixseven" (pause) Penny: "Eight!"
It reminds me of a sesame street skit in which Grover asks Elmo for some help because he can't remember the first part of the alphabet. He tells Elmo just to start saying the alphabet and he will chime in when he comes to the part he knows. The gag is the only part Grover knows is "Z".

Gestures

So, Tray and I never introduced sign language to Penny. Awhile ago we had a babysitter who did some sign language with her. I was telling this to a friend of mine and she said, “Oh, you better watch out. I have friends who did the baby sign language thing and their kid took forever to learn how to talk because all he would do was use sign language instead of say the word.” As some of you are aware, I have a genetic hearing problem and not being sure if Penny would inherit that or not (though there is no indication of that so far), I wanted to make sure her talking took precedence. So we actually purposefully chose to not teach her sign language. Well, I have since read that there have been studies that indicate that sign language doesn’t delay verbal development. After I read that about four or five months ago or so I started doing the sign for “milk” with her, but she never caught on to it. She understood it when I did it, but never tried to do it herself. She always just pointed to the boppy or said “bop” instead, which I figured was better anyway. Starting this week though she’s been making the sign for milk! This follows her making her own invented sign for lotion which is just her rubbing her tummy. Plus, she’ll rub her hands together when we get near the sink to indicate hand washing – and she’ll make the same sign in her highchair when she is done eating and it is time to wipe her hands off. I taught her how to splash the water in the bathtub, and when she sees water in a book, she’ll sort of hit the book as though splashing the water so that motion has kind of become her word for water. She’ll also “knock” on the door and if you say “door” she’ll make that motion. And of course, she’ll pull on her diaper in a certain way to let us know about that. It’s kind of neat that in addition to her verbal skills taking off, she has seemed to figure out that she can use gestures as words too. The next thing we need to do is re-learn waving hello and bye-bye. She started waving some months ago now, but hasn’t done it in a long time.

Potty Bear

Ok, so Penny has been exhibiting signs of potty readiness such as almost always letting us know she has a dirty diaper (but not wet ones). I know she is too young to potty train for real, but I figured it would be a good idea to get a potty chair and have it around for her to see and get used to. Well, as soon as I pulled it out of the box she sat on it, and wants to play on or around it all the time. I put it in the bathroom next to our toilet though so we don't go in there all that often. Anyway, over the weekend after we got up in the morning I took her diaper off and let her sit on it figuring I would be having to take her overnight diaper off anyway, so why not let her go without one for a few minutes. Sparing you details - she used the potty! I haven't really put her back on the potty since then except for once, but I've been reading up on the subject and she really is doing a lot of things that indicate she understands what is going on. I am not going to write about it for all the internet to see, but it is pretty cool. Anyway, all that to say that this morning, she took Mr. Bear and sat him on the (clean) potty. For those reading who are not parents, that might sound gross, but it really was very cute. Now, I'm still not going to go into full on potty training for awhile yet, but maybe if we can just let this thing keep developing as though it was all her idea, it just might not be that bad. :)