guess what we did today?

take a look at this baby.  what does she need, desperately?

did you say "a haircut"?  we agree!  penny got her first haircut today!  lulu's is a park slope institution - they give kids haircuts while they watch videos and play with toys.  it's quite an operation, and they totally know what they're doing.  the very nice haircutting lady asked me what i wanted, and i had absolutely no idea.  our main priorities were getting all of that hair out of her eyes and making the back look like it didn't belong to a crazy person.
i wish i could say she was a perfect angel who had a lovely time, but alas, that was not the case.  though ernie was on the tv, the sound of scissors and the wet hair got to be too much for her sometimes.  she was very brave, though, and only cried a bit.  if only we had known from the beginning that in the bin of toys was a toy cell phone, we would have had smooth sailing the entire time!

penny now has what i believe is the super typical girl first haircut.  she still has her adorable baby face, but she is now one step closer to being a little girl.
SPEAKING of steps, she took six unassisted steps tonight!  she is so close to walking!  what a big day!

celebrations make penny sleepy.

today was our next door neighbor lydia's second birthday party!  penny had a great time chasing after the big kids, hanging out with the grown ups, and eating an entire slice of cake for lunch!  when we got home, it took her a little while to calm down, and my plan was to snuggle with her on the bed until she fell asleep so that i could trim her nails.  we both woke up about three hours later - birthday parties are exhausting for everyone!
penny has started imbuing items with mystical significance, and carrying them around the house for hours at a time.  so far, she's bestowed this honor upon two plastic tubs of baby food prunes, the ice pack case we use to carry her milk, a baby carrot and a banana.  today, she chose the banana, and then pointed to the rocking chair. she just wanted to chill out with her banana.

i recently received a yarn catalog, and penny loves flipping through it.  she gets so serious about pointing to items and talking about them.  she enjoys pointing to pictures of hats and then at her head, or socks and then her feet.  she is a genius, and a born shopper.

also this week, kisses!  she is the sweetest little baby, and will give kisses to us, bath toys, and that pesky baby in the mirror who follows her everywhere:

SHE SAID "WA WA" WHEN SHE WANTED SOME WATER!

winter!

winter has really settled in here in brooklyn, and since i'm barely home during daylight hours it makes it tough to take good photos.  have you missed your penny updates?  ok - here you go:

BAM!  cuteness right off the bat!  you weren't ready for that, were you?  you will be even less ready to learn that on thursday, penny took a step!  by herself!  and then she did it again!  i wasn't around to witness these first little adorable stumbles, but she's been playing around with moving her feet all weekend.  she can now stand for pretty much as long as she wants to, and can stand while holding something, which she's super proud of.  there is no video yet of any solo walking, as she is so interested in cameras that she immediately stops whatever she's doing and crawls over to investigate as soon as the cameras (or cell phones or any other recording devices) come out.

i will leave you with this video, though it is not solo walking and it was not taken this week, i think it's worth it.

walking!

it seems that i can upload video again, so here's the first one i wanted to show you, filmed on her birthday (december 17th) - she's even better at it now!