happy late fathers' day!

as i'm sure you're aware, this past weekend was fathers' day, which penny spent visiting with her grandfathers!  we also got to visit with penny's great-grandma mae, and we all had a wonderful time hanging out with each other and enjoying being a family.
penny's grandma jane's mother's day present to herself was a chair for penny - and i'm not sure whether you can see it in the photo or not, but it's literally got her name on it!

she had a lovely time sitting in a high chair and eating (what else) bananas:

and then she enjoyed a chair at great grandma mae's house!  it was a day of chairs!:

hope all of you fathers out there had a fabulous day!  i know we did!

half birthday!

today is penny's half birthday, as you can see from this photo:

she is army crawling all over the place, with surprising speed!  if you are confused as to where the cords are in your home, please just invite penny over, and she will find them for you.
we've been having some trouble getting her to sleep lately, especially naps.  i think she's excited about the world and doesn't want to miss anything, coupled with the beginning of separation anxiety.  we're working through it, but it's a bit of a slog.
she's added peas and prunes to her food repetiore, and prunes are running a very close second to the perennial favorite, bananas.
penny has started really playing this week.  she bangs toys together, knocks down stacked blocks, has discovered her crate of toys and takes her favorites out, and will find actions or noises so funny that she quite literally falls over laughing.  as it turns out, we have a pretty cute baby, but don't take my word for it...

thinking about the future

this week, penny took some time to think about future careers.

"Can I help you with your laundry?"

"IT department, what seems to be the trouble?"

"I am here to install your cable and demonstrate proper remote control licking techniques"

she has moved on in her eating and is a pro at getting food off of a spoon.  she has had bananas, carrots, and apples - with bananas being the clear favorite.  she can sit up for minutes at a time, and is beginning to combine rolling and army crawling to navigate her way around.  she also found her feet (with some help from her grandfather) and has started putting them in her mouth.  we're pretty sure she's teething, though there's nothing showing yet.

of course, if none of the above jobs work out for penny, she's always got one to fall back on:

supermodel

memorial day!

we had an absolutely amazing memorial day weekend.  not only did we get a whole lot of relaxation and hang out time, we got a ton of stuff done!
penny has moved on from cereal to bananas, and the difference in eating is incredible.  she has really gotten the hang of the spoon-in-mouth rhythm, and is keeping remarkable amounts of food in her mouth and off of her bib! i hesitate to even mention it for fear that it will change, but she has been sleeping pretty consistently from 7:30ish - 6:30ish.  this is quite possibly the most amazing thing that ever happened in the history of the world.  i never thought i would be grateful to be sleeping until 6:30, but five months with very interrupted sleep will do that to a person, i guess.
i have absolutely no idea about the order in or days on which things occurred.  i know that we cleaned the entire apartment, went to the framers and the bank, went grocery shopping, bought wine, went to a picnic in the park, two barbecues, the gowanus food truck festival and had an amazing time.  i also know that penny finally got the opportunity to wear these:

and that i took this, my new favorite photo of penny:

i was told that it doesn't count as a real memorial day weekend unless you take a hilarious photo of a baby and a beer, so here you go!  proof that it was, in fact, memorial day!  hope yours was as great as ours!

penny's biggest day

sunday the 23rd of may was penny's most accomplished day so far!  we started off with an almost complete mastery of the one legged bounce in her bouncy chair, followed by a picnic in the park with her friend (and potential future husband) david.  

david is the first person under a year old that she has recognized and wanted to interact with in the same way she does with us - namely, try to pull pieces of your face off.  david was remarkably tolerant of this.  the whole time we were picnicking, penny sat up on her own - another new skill. 
when we got back to brooklyn, she ate a whole bunch of rice cereal.

the key, as it turns out, is cinnamon!  thanks again, binky!
of course,  after so much eating, she needed a bath, and this was the first bath where she sat up and played with her bath toys. 


quick lost break here, as sunday was also the broadcast of the final lost episode:

not penny's boat.

also, she wore this onsie all day:

no spoilers!

thank you for indulging me.

after the bath, we went over to friends' pre-lost party, where penny was amused by monica, 

amused by mary, 

and then passed out in the most artistic way possible.

AS IF THAT WEREN'T ENOUGH - and just to make sure we would remember this day forever, she slept straight through from 10pm - 6:30am.  we look forward to many more awesome days, but i'm not sure how she can top this one.

WTF?!

penny got name dropped in a podcast that is not produced by one of us!  our intrepid friend jordan told alex to check out marc maron's WTF podcast, where maria bamford (pictured below) and marc maron talk about penny between minute 13 and 14 here: http://tinyurl.com/2fnf5b9
a warning before you go there - WTF stands for exactly what you think it stands for, and while everything is perfectly lovely and suitable for everyone in that one minute between 13 and 14, the beginning is riddled with Language, and the discussion that follows talks about Big Stuff.  if you have a delicate constitution or sensibility, perhaps you should listen to that minute, and then check out penny's online photo album, here: http://picasaweb.google.com/miss.marni/PennyRuth#

we're back!

so much to catch up on! last weekend, we went to two birthday parties in one day! penny's cousin brayden turned one, and her grandma also had a significant birthday which i shall not name.
at the first party, this happened:

(don't worry, she didn't actually drink any)
and at the second party, she fell asleep almost immediately and stayed that way. amazing!

on wednesday, we got on a plane and flew to LA!  we were super nervous about penny's first flight, but she was perfectly behaved!  we got so many compliments on her awesomeness.  about an hour into the flight, we gave her an empty water bottle to play with, and she was fascinated.  FASCINATED.

there was an announcement in flight that anyone with kids could stop by the cockpit after we landed, so we did.  we thought maybe we'd get a photo with the captain (pilot?), but instead we got this:

we had a very fancy baby party at the swanky hotel roosevelt (by the pool, don't you know):

penny had so much fun by that pool that she decided to hang out in her bikini next to cousin marcie's pool - doesn't every baby have a crocheted string bikini?

on friday, we drove up a terrifying mountain to lake arrowhead, where we attended MaxFunCon - totally amazing and indescribable experience.  john hodgman, maria bamford and jesse thorn all fell in love with penny.  we were lucky to make it back to brooklyn with her!

penny is now a rolling machine - back to front, front to back - she is unstoppable!  two great weeks!  woo hoo!