happy halloween!

it's hard to believe that one year ago today, we were taking maternity photos in the park, and now here we are with a 10 and a half month old baby.
park slope is the place to be on halloween - and since it fell on a sunday this year, kids were out in costume starting at about 3:30.  we ended up rushing home from our afternoon walk to start our candy distribution.  alex had read about neil gamian's all hallows read campaign, and so he offered every trick or treater a copy of his comic book.  the kids FREAKED OUT, the parents seemed really impressed and appreciative, and overall, it was pretty amazing.
penny sported two looks for her first halloween; her daytime attire:

 and her costume:

for those of you who don't know what this is, penny is nibbler from futurama!  not a bad job, if i do say so myself.  wandering around and seeing everyone dressed up, visiting our favorite stores and showing penny off, and watching the parade with friends - plus candy and wine!  halloween is such a great day!

sometimes...

so, sometimes i am having a bad day at work.  like, a big, bad, frustrating, nothing is going right, i want to punch people in the face kind of day.  the kind of day where i want to curl up under my desk and eat skittles until 6.  and then, i get an email from alex.  no text, just the subject line "we're in the park!", and this photo:

and everything gets better.  maybe i was sending my anguish out into the cosmos and he could sense it?  whatever it is that made him send me this picture, my day just got about 400% happier.

a beautiful day!

today was an absolutely lovely, warm day.  we've been a little bit lazy this weekend, and spent our time hanging around, eating a lot, going through penny's clothes and walking in the park.  aunt jodi told us about a gap kids open casting call, so why not enter another photo contest?  once i figured out how to get my camera out of fully automatic mode, i was so much more pleased with the photos!  what do you think?

ten months!

it's october!  that means that penny is 10 months old!  there is no way that she will sit still when there is a delicious sign to be nommed on!

also, penny is playing games.  lots of games that she makes up herself!  for example: she puts her blanket on her head, and laughs and laughs and laughs.  that game is called "your blanket is not a hat".  she crawls over to  the door to the nursery, waves bye bye, and then plays peek a boo with the blinds.  that game does not have a name yet.  

alex took a video of penny and i playing my favorite of her new games; it's called "surprise!", and while this may not be the best example of the game, it's a pretty spectacular video, i think.*

*granted, i am pretty biased...

crime fighter

this weekend was new york comic con, so alex was very busy!  penny and i went to visit him at work on sunday:


















i made her a tiny spiderman "crime fighter" dress for the occasion!

basically, this is the way to do comic con, if you have the opportunity.  show up for a couple of hours, bring an adorable baby that everyone wants to talk to, and watch the whole thing from a glass box up above it all.  oh!  and make sure someone takes a photo of your whole family:

this week, penny has hit what i found out from the internet is called the "nine month sleep regression".  she has hit all of the milestones that bring on this phase - pulling up to stand, cruising, parroting vocalization, teething - and she has stopped sleeping, pretty much altogether.   if we don't get it just right, she lies in her crib screaming - not crying, SCREAMING - and for the past two nights she's woken up at 3am and not gone back to sleep.  when cuddling her to get her to sleep, i have noticed that all of her little muscles are firing - a lot in her legs, but her arms twitch too, and her face goes through all of its expressions. there’s clearly a lot happening in there, and if it were happening to me, i’m sure i wouldn’t be able to sleep either!  i hear that this is temporary, but that "temporary" can mean "three months", so hopefully this will be over soon and we can go back to our non-zombified selves.
she's just so gosh darned cute, though...

guess what?!

you GUYS!  guess what we just found out?  it turns out, that if you give someone some money, they will come to your house and watch your baby for you!  and they don't even have to be related to you or anything!  and if they aren't doing anything else, they might even do it at NIGHT?  so that you can possibly go see a movie or go to dinner with the people who USUALLY babysit for you!  this is amazing!
in truth, alex had to be somewhere this afternoon, and we are already asking too much of our parents, so we hired a friend who babysits  for a living.  six hours, and penny had an awesome time!
alex is pretty sure he felt a top tooth, and though i didn't, he felt them before i did on the bottom, so color me convinced!
penny has become a pulling up on stuff master!  she is getting much better at cruising, and can still plonk down on her bottom when she's done standing.
we have started sharing our meals with her at mealtime, and tonight i cut up an apple into matchsticks for her - what a treat!  here's a collage of tonight's dinner (apples, grapes & cheerios) featuring her new bib!

also, we got a new couch!  last week we took a spontaneous trip to ikea, ate meatballs and mashed potatoes, and bought a convertible couch!  now you have a place to stay when you come visit!