Corn Meal Part 2

Who would have believed that Penelope's birthday only got one post, but Corn Meal is going to get two...

So yesterday I was eating cereal and Penelope pointed to it as if she wanted some, so I gave her a piece (it was Corn Chex). After doing so, I thought I better check the list of ingredients (being the slightly delayed good mother that I am). It turns out that the first ingredient is.....cornmeal. Since then she has been "asking" for my cereal more and more often.

Corn Meal

Maybe Penelope does have some Indiana blood running through her because one of the things she will consistently eat these days is things made from corn meal. She has previously expressed a like for cornbread, cornbread muffins etc..., but this weekend we learned of her (at least temporary) love of polenta. She went to a Brazilian steakhouse with us this weekend for her dad's birthday and could not get enough of the polenta they kept bringing! Beef, no! Lamb, no! Delicious things from the salad bar? NO! She had a brief stint of eating nothing but the mashed potatoes they brought out, but one bite of the polenta and there was no going back!

B Words

I think we have to make it official, Penelope's first word was ball, and has been followed by balloon - which not surprisingly sounds very similar to ball. But in general she seems to do the "B" sounds pretty well. This has made me realize how many "B" words there are that are important to a 14 month old. For example, blueberries, "Brown Bear Brown Bear," book, banana, "bye bye." The only one of these that she may have down is "bye bye" or something like it. There's something that I think is "Brown Bear Brown Bear," but it sounds more like "BraaBraa BraaBraa" said very quickly.

Older Guys

The other day when I went to pick up Penelope from daycare there was another mom from Penelope's class picking up her son as well. She had her 4 year old son with her too. As Penelope and I were leaving she said to me, "Oh, your Penelope's mom, my son Ryan (the 4 year old) has a crush on Penelope, he went home yesterday and told his older brother all about her!" I didn't quite know what to say, it was so cute and sweet, but I don't know what the appropriate response is to a 4-year old's crush on your 1-year old?

Anyway, I think the biggest concern is what this means for Penelope's powers over older guys in the future?

Rocking Baby

Daideo and Nana (Jessica's dad and mom respectively) were nice enough to get Penelope a rocking elephant for Christmas. For the past couple of weeks we'd put her on it and she would try to get off it right away. But this morning something clicked.

I will admit I took some artistic license and added about 5 seconds of music at the front and end of the video. The rest of the soundtrack is provided by the elephant.

- Ben

Grandgirls

In the last few months Penelope has been lucky enough to have a cousin born here in the DC area. Grace (Gracie) Chambers Heisler was born November 12, 2010. Gracie's mom is my first cousin Sarah (our moms are sisters). I don't know what that makes Gracie and Penelope, second cousins? first cousins once removed? Let's just call them cousins and leave it at that. But to Sarah's mom and my mom, they are their "grandgirls," a phrase that our grandad has used for years to describe Sarah, me, and all of the girl cousins in our generation.

Anyway, we are all so excited to have a new baby in the family, and to have her so close by is truly special. Gracie was 6 weeks old when she came to Penelope's first birthday party and we got a nice shot of the four of us:



[credit to Alison, the woman we had take pictures at the party, if you like her work check her out at http://www.redshoesphotography.com/]

An Experiment

First I have to explain how our Christmas trip to Atlanta shaped this post, twice. Aunt Mandy was nice enough to give us a Flip Cam so I have been playing with that (it is pretty cool). Plus we got to see Cousin Ally eating with utensils and a plate. So I figured we should give the whole plate and spoon thing a try.

- Ben