More Penelope Tricks

Penelope is adding new tricks to her repertoire every day it seems, so I am trying to be sure to capture as many as I can. Some of the new additions include:

* brushing her hair - or at least holding her hairbrush close to head

* looking for her "dada" in the morning when he is shaving and saying "dada"

* putting things away, from books on her shelves, to her hairbrush, to her toothpaste

* bringing me the same book night after night from her pile of books, consistently enough that I believe she is doing it purposefully, rather than accidentally - I just wish I understood why it is "Goodnight Gorilla"

* giving hugs

* sometimes saying 'Hi"

* saying "Ba...Bye" at appropriate times, including beating us to the punch sometimes when we are about to hang up the phone

Sound Alikes

I learned the other day that Penelope knows where her nose is. I know this because it was snowing out (luckily this was actually more than just the other day, probably more like just the other week) and I said "look, snow!" and she pointed to her nose (say those two words out loud if you aren't following yet). Upon a bit more investigative I learned that she actually knew where her ear, mouth, eyes and belly were too. I was reminded that she knew where her mouth was just last night as I said something about the mouse in a book we were reading, and she pointed to her mouth. These moments are almost too endearing to be believed.

Pink Hats & Pink Pants

Here are some pix of Penelope cruising around the house in her pink rain hat, pink pants, and playing with her pastel name puzzle (yes, she is definitely a girl; also she is apparently camera-shy, she doesn't want her face captured on "film"):

The Power of a Child

This past week at work was a stressful one, I had a big deadline on Friday and as a result was at the office until 11pm Thursday night. Once I did get home and to bed I didn't sleep well at all, I just kept thinking about all of things that had to get done the next day to meet the deadline. Before I knew it it was the 5 o'clock hour and time to try to get out of bed. As soon as it was time to get Penelope out of bed however, the stress and worrying dissipated. It was just Penelope and me and our morning routine. I didn't even have to try to stop thinking about the work stress, it just wasn't there. My improved mood continued all the way to the office where the day actually wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared it would be the night before. Anyway, in short, I was amazed at what a difference an hour and half of taking care of Penelope made on my mental state. It was transformative.

Penelope's Tricks

it has been awhile since we have detailed some of Penelope's tricks; the latest ones include:

* blowing her nose - sort of, she holds the tissue in the right place and sort of blows her nose

* blowing kisses

* kicking a soccer ball

* picking out books and bringing them to you, then backing up into you and dropping into your lap so you can read them to her

* giving Hi-5s - this is actually an old one sort of, she used to hi-5 you then push your hand down, now it's more of a straight up hi-5

* finding and bringing you a ball if you ask her to - most of the time

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!