dentist!

this afternoon, penny took her first trip to the dentist!  she was pretty freaked out initially, as the last time she was in a medical situation she was getting blood drawn and the phlebotomist rooted around in her tiny vein before giving up and prodding her in the other arm, but it didn't take her too long to warm up.  there's a new dentist joining the practice, and she gave penny a pair of gloves, handed her the mirror and had her check out alex's teeth.  the technician let her push the button to take alex's x-rays.  the dentist showed her the photos and video he took of alex's teeth.  eventually she warmed up enough to everyone to sit in the magic chair and drink some water, though she only let the dentist actually look at her teeth while i was holding her.
all in all, it was a successful first visit!  next time will be even better!

sometimes i amaze myself.

usually, i am pretty confident with my craftiness and my ability to creatively problem solve.  i am pretty pleased with myself today, and i feel like this is an appropriate forum to tell you all about it.  moms of little girls out there, listen up!  also, maybe you've already thought of this yourself and i should just be quiet.
anyhoo, penny is now all undies all the time.  she has had several accident free days in a row, and stays dry all night.  this is awesome.  she is mostly  able to dress herself as well - also awesome!  the problem is the undies themselves.  while some of them have one design on the front, most are either solid color or an all over print.  this makes it really difficult to figure out which is the main hole, and where your legs are supposed to go.  also, it's basically impossible for a two year old to tell the front of a pair of tiny undies from the back (parents of little boys, i assume boys underpants have little flies or something that make this easier?  if not, hoo boy - keep reading).
a flash of genius struck me today.  while taking the laundry out of the dryer and making our famed laundry mountain, i told penny to meet me in the living room.  "today," i told her "we are giving all of your undies bellybuttons."  that's right!  at the top of the waistband, right in the front in the middle i made a little dot with a black sharpie.  it's on the inside of the waistband so you can't see it from the outside, and when i say that she caught on IMMEDIATELY, that is no exaggeration.  halfway through the marking up operation she asked me if i would be putting bellybuttons on all of her undies and when i said yes he said "mommy, that's going to really help me!"
so spread the word!  bust out the sharpies!  make your kids feel that much more independent!  bellybuttons for all undies everywhere!

also, hi, curicon!

2 stories

penny has a hard time staying at the dinner table - she is so busy, she knows it's the end of the day, and is always looking to squeeze in a few more minutes of play time before her bath.  tonight, alex asked her if she could tell us a story.  we got two.

story 1

once upon a time there was a cherry in a tree.  the cherry said "where am i?"  a bird flew into the tree.  it said "you're in a tree".  the end.

story 2

once upon a time a cherry was in the street alone.  a car came and smooshed the cherry.a man  and a woman fixed it.  it was fine!  the end.

NO ACCIDENTS TODAY!!!

another biggest day!

on thursday, penny had a pants off day, where she wore no bottoms and used the potty all day.  on friday she had a pants off morning, and yesterday we spent a couple of hours at home with no diaper, and then went out to see the bindlestiff family circus perform outdoors at lincoln center.  we had a great time watching the show and then it started pouring!  when we got home, we tried some more no diaper time, and she had an accident but it was no big deal.
this morning* we spent a couple of hours with her running around totally starkers, with a quick break for this:

she also provided me with a costume, and we went trick or treating all around the house.

when alex asked her if she wanted to go out and buy some big girl undies she said YES!
we let her pick out her favorites at the children's place, and then got a few more at target - they were all out of all of the fun stuff - no princesses, fairies, dora, or sesame street.  we did end up getting her some training pants as well.  we changed her into undies right at the mall, and she did great!  we used the bathrooms at several fine retail establishments, then we took her for a haircut.  she fell asleep in her stroller, and i was terrified that she'd have an accident, but she slept for almost two hours, woke up and i took her to the bathroom about half an hour later and all was good!  since we were having such an amazing day already, we decided to watch "toy story".  penny is aware of the characters, but had no idea of the story, and she totally dug it!  she had an accident after the movie, but that was really our fault, as we went straight into family band time without checking in to see if she needed to go.  we put her to bed in training pants, which look TOTALLY RIDICULOUS, but will hopefully get the job done.

so far, so good!


*the first thing she did this morning was "help set the table", which ended up looking like this:

potty training!

penny spent the whole day today with no pants on - and she had no accidents!  i bought her some princess pull ups, which she tried on but is not currently wearing, and some nail stickers, which she is.
this was a very successful first potty training day!

since it would not be so appropriate to post pantsless penny photos, and because there aren't any, here are some pictures i've taken over the past couple of weeks that didn't really merit their own posts.

happy (very belated) father's day!

just because this post is coming late doesn't mean we love the fathers in penny's life any less!  sorry this is so late, everyone!

alex decided that he wanted to go to the bronx zoo for father's day, and since it's one of my very favorite places to go, i quickly agreed!  we got there 5 minutes after the doors opened, and got on the second monorail out of the gate!

we met up with my parents right outside of the monorail, and then penny and alex rode a camel!

we then met up with alex's parents, brother & his girlfriend, and we all ate lunch together.  my parents headed out, we saw a ton more animals, then went to dinner!  it was a really terrific day.  i'm sorry it's taken me a month to blog about it.  to make up for it, here are some adorable animal photos.

blorp