Monday, January 30, 2012

penny's top three phrases

penny has started speaking like an adult, and it's pretty jarring to hear her use words indicating that she comprehends waaaaay more than i thought she could.  however, she is still two, and sometimes what's going on in her head is ridiculous.
1. "actually"  she has started sticking "actually" at the end of her statements sort of randomly, but also when she disagrees with us.
"i peed in the potty!"
"no, you didn't"
"i did, actually"

2. "in my imagination" this is awesome.  when she wants something to be true, this is her go to.
"penny, those shoes are too big for you"
(while putting the shoes on) "in my imagination, they're ok"

3. "just talking about it" 
"chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken"
"would you like to eat some chicken?"
"no, i'm just talking about it"

a bonus: we're trying to explain to penny about closing your eyes and picturing things, about dreams, about things that happen in your internal life in general.  i told her that there is one song from one of her cds that gets stuck in my head (dana: it's "i want to be near you" from blue moo) and what that means.

that song came on a few days after we had this conversation and she turned to me and said "mama!  this song gets stuck in your hair!"

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

snowy day

over the weekend, we got a beautiful snowstorm.  it has been such a mild, strange winter that it was a treat to pull on our snowboots and take a walk in the freshly fallen snow, even if we were frozen coming home.

bathroom talk

those of you with delicate constitutions may not wish to read about this.  you can skip this post, i don't mind.  i was going back and forth about whether to write about this at all, but a large majority of the reason for my keeping this blog in the first place was so that i could look back from the future and remember when penny has done stuff; or, rather, not have to remember, because it's chronicled here and my brain does not function in that "remembering things" way that humans are supposed to have.
so.  for the past couple of months, we've had a (really sweet) potty chair set up in our bathroom.  it is awesome.  we have the "once upon a potty" book, and we've been encouraging penny to try the potty a couple of times a day, but not pushing it at all.  she's peed in it.  before today, she had pooped in it once before.  today she pooped in the potty again!  this is giant news.  EVEN MORE GIANT, however, is that when alex and penny were out and about this morning, as they were getting ready to leave barnes & noble penny told alex that there were poops in her diaper.  there were not.  she asked if she could use the potty.  alex explained that there was no potty in the b&n, but that she could use the toilet - AND SHE DID.  penny peed in public!
i will make sure to put the collapsing potty seat in our diaper bag so that poor alex doesn't have to worry about her falling in in the future, but let us mark this day in our calendars, journals and blogs.  today i received not one, but TWO phone calls about elimination, and i could not be prouder.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

new math

penny is very good at counting to three.  we do it all the time, so she has the concept of three being more than one and more than two, understands that things happen to her when we get to three, and i THINK she knows that there are bigger numbers, but is not quite sure how to get to them.  for example, last night, while changing her:

me: penny, let's practice counting.  i'll start.  one...

penny: two...three...eleven...fourteen...eleventeen!

she is already better at math than i am!

Monday, January 16, 2012

hot chocolate!

it was about 17 degrees for most of the day yesterday, so we decided to stay in.  as a special treat, i made penny's first hot chocolate!
first sip

surprise!

it's tasty!

everything is more fun together.

super sweet

we should do this more often! *
just in case the photos were not enough, here is a little video.  it's kind of the cutest thing i've ever seen in my life, so please prepare yourself:




*alternate caption: "jean luc!"

Sunday, January 8, 2012

everything's great.

it's hard to write a post when everything's just puttering along and there are no real milestones to report.  we're pretty sure penny's off bottles (knock wood), and we'll be tackling the pacifier next; though we're pretty sure that will be much harder.  sleeping in her own bed has been going incredibly well (knock wood again).  she wakes up at around 6am, pads over to our room, cuddles for a little bit, then i send her back to her own bed and she sleeps until 7:30.  i bought her one of these, and hopefully she'll stay in her own bed once it arrives and we explain it to her.  brilliant!
other than that, not much to report.  she's talking incredibly well, climbing up every piece of playground equipment like a champ, and being all around wonderful most of the time.  i'm not going to lie, she has her moments, but the good times far outweigh the bad right now.
pictures!