ouch. ouch! OUCH!

penny had her nine month doctor's appointment today, and she's doing great!  she is now 18 pounds 5 ounces, which is right on at the 50th percentile, and 29 inches (sorry, mom - i said 27 on the phone, but that was last visit!), which is still 90th.  she's doing all of the things she should be doing and more, and the doctor is very impressed with her cuteness!  she told us that her top teeth are probably coming in any day now!  we have gotten the go ahead for all sorts of new foods!  that was the good news of the day. in less good news, poor little penny got her third hep b shot and a flu shot - the first injection in her arm - and she handled it like such a big girl!  she didn't cry at all for the flu shot, and managed to recover from the vaccination by watching water pour out of the faucet into the sink.  easy as pie, we thought.  but NO!  it turns out that nowadays they send you to get blood drawn for a CBC and lead screening when you are nine months old, and we figured we'd take care of that today as well since it needed to be done.  hello, surprise visit to the hospital!  since alex bit the bullet and held her for the shots at the doctor, i held her for the phlebotomists.  luckily for her, she has very good veins (she gets them from her mama), and it was over pretty quickly.  the poor thing was so pooped after the whole ordeal that she fell asleep all snuggled up on me as i carried her home.
this week, penny has learned to pull herself up to standing!  it's very exciting, and she is really proud of herself.  she has started to figure out cruising, and i'm doing the mean mom thing of putting something she really wants just out of her reach to encourage her.  it worked for rolling over and crawling, so why not this too?
also, she is feeding herself with a spoon!  i help her go "dip, dip, dip" in the bowl, and she expertly maneuvers it into her mouth.  she was stuck on putting the wrong end in her mouth for a couple of days until i pulled this trick - totally ignoring when she chomped on the wrong end, and cheering and clapping like a maniac when she got the right end.  it IS a bit like training a pet, but whatever!  it worked!  here's a collage:

i was trying to take photos, hold the bowl
and help her eat, all at the same time.
please forgive the blurriness. 

i am totally in love with all of her fall clothes, and i try to dress her in them until alex helpfully points out that it's in the high 80s outside.  we had the air conditioner on two days of last week.  seriously, people, it's late september already.  i was not wearing tank tops as back to school clothes when i was a kid.

finally!  a photo of her teeth!

and to tie it all up, speaking of trying new foods:

so, you grownups call this "chicken"?

i LIKE this chicken!

this has been a rough day for me.  do not judge.

after the jump, a bonus photo for fans of penny's ridiculous expressions

tornado?

we're still not sure whether or not last week's storm was a tornado, but whatever it was, it made a huge mess.  penny was fascinated by the storm, and didn't mind the thunder, lightning, or super ridiculous rain.  the next day, alex took her out to their usual swings and found this:

it has since been cleared away.

since penny was born, it has been our great dream that someday we'd be able to go to a restaurant or sit around the dinner table and share our food with her.  this week, penny has started doing just that, and taking it one step further - she has started sharing HER food with US!

it all started one night when we ordered indian food and i gave penny a piece of my naan - she really enjoyed it, but she had a great time holding it out to both of us.  then over the weekend, the big gay ice cream truck (<- yes, i'm serious) stopped in park slope, and we got ice cream.  when i was done with the good part, i let penny finish off the cone:

(you can also pretend she has just shoved an entire ice cream cone in her mouth, if you like)

but tonight - TONIGHT - i was walking home from work when alex and penny caught up with me and we made a spur of the moment decision to go out to dinner!  not only was penny perfectly behaved, but we got a couple of carrot sticks for her, she shared my soup, crackers, the bun from my hamburger and alex's fries!  she had sips of water!  and she held out her carrot stick for us to share because she is such a sweet baby!  it was a dream come true - really.  we waited for this day for a very long time, and it was all we had hoped for - we all had so much fun.

just to wrap it all up, in honor of the first day of fall, a photo of penny in my favorite of her new autumn outfits:

Piano Playin' Penny

gentlemen, let this be a warning to you.

tonight, alex left penny & me alone in the apartment to go to friend's surprise party.  fellas, when you leave your ladies alone, who knows what sort of shenanigans they can get up to?  what sort of SPINACH BASED shenanigans?
when he left, penny started a pretty typical dinner, baby carrot in one hand, and no warning of what was to come; except perhaps the fact that she's not wearing a shirt....

but when all was said and done, she (and her carrot) looked like this:

not pictured is the spinach splatter on the wall, the floor, the chair, the couch and my computer (which are all behind her) from when she flung the bowl.
despite appearances, she ate quite a bit of spinach.

after penny went to sleep, i got up to solo shenanigans.  i have, for a very long time, HATED the lampshades that came with the lamps in our living room.  since the lamps and the accompanying shades came with the living room, and we paid not a penny for them, i felt bad complaining, and when i researched replacement shades i found out that holy heck, they are expensive!
a couple of weekends ago we stopped at my new favorite store in the slope - a supply store for absolutely every single craft you can think of, and several more that i can't yet identify BUT WILL.  i bought a yard of fabric and some elastic, and my lamp went from this:

to this:

success!  i only bought enough fabric for one lampshade, just in case the whole thing was a miserable failure, but i am super psyched to get another yard and cover the other one!  and then, scraps!  to make something else with!

you didn't think i was going to end with a lamp photo, did you?  nuh uh.  proof that penny got cleaned up all nice and pretty:

baby sitting!

penny has figured out how to sit herself up without holding on to anything!  she changed radically when she could hold herself up in a seated position, and she has changed again now that she can get there herself.  she's generally happier and she's eating again!  she's also in the middle of a raging bout of separation anxiety, and gets frustrated when we take things away from her that she really wants.  we've had to empty all of our lowest shelves, and whatever she finds, she can carry with her from room to room.  she gets super excited when she sees either of us and waves hi and bye!
i bought a lot of clothes from ebay for her, and she had a great time sorting them with me!

i decided a little while ago to have a long term project - taking a photo of penny's hand on top of my hand every mother's day...but then i kept forgetting to do it.  so this week, we took the first of these photos, and i will definitely take one a year - hopefully in the mother's day general time frame, but if not, i'm not going to stress it.

so i put penny to sleep tonight, though she seemed more awake than usual.  alex and i were chatting about how maybe we should have lowered the crib height today when, on the video monitor, we watched her pull herself up to stand for the first time ever!  cut to half an hour later, the crib was lowered and a sleepy baby was put in it!

what penny's been working on

hello!

sorry for the long absence - it's been a very sleepy week here at chez z.  here is a video for you that might make up for it - here's how to optimize your enjoyment.

step one - press play here:

Theme sound bite  2001: A Space Odyssey sound bites

step two: press play here:


step three: be amazed!!!