NBPM 14 - Friday Family - Penguin

(c) 2008 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

I started this post this morning, but it's been one of those days with no school for Pumpkin, so we went to the children's museum, and then no napping this afternoon, and one thing after another... but dang it, I WILL get this done yet today!


I talked about her big sister last week, so this week it's Penguin's turn. I feel like you all know her really well since I've been blogging about her since, well, before she was born!

I've shared her birth story. You got to see her learning to crawl. You saw her almost-first steps. You've gotten to share her first birthday.

You know what she's like. She's silly and affectionate and has already started being chatty. She tries to "help" and do whatever we're doing. She can be very sweet with her big sister. She has strong opinions already, like when she's all done or when she decides she doesn't like something.

It seems like she has grown and grown up so much more quickly than Pumpkin did, but I know a lot of that is being a second child. There's a bigger one around distracting me, so I don't notice the same things in the same ways or with as much detail sometimes.

But I still notice how she now takes down the dish towel and wipes up any spills she finds. And how she can open the backyard gates... and tries to close them again. She uses her "words" and syllables very well, letting us know if it's "Nana" (her sister) or "nana" (banana) or "nah-nah" (no) that she means.

She adores her big sister, and follows her around, and tries to copy whatever she's doing. Sometimes that causes a little strife and difficulty, but it's easy to see already that they love each other, and that soon they'll be more able to play together.

She likes to climb up steps, and it's her favorite thing that we do right after dropping Pumpkin off at her 4K door, which is down some stairs. "Up! Up!" she cries, and takes off to try to grab the railing. She's still hesitant about going down though, so we're working on that. She can "run," which always gives me the giggles, and she loves to go down the slide.

She will carry around dolls more than Pumpkin ever did, whether it be "Door-door" (Dora) or "Em-ma" or "La" (Flossie) or her little bear "DAY-day!" (Daisy). They get put in the tiny stroller and wheeled around the downstairs or just lugged around for a while and left laying on the floor. She also likes balls and blocks and whatever Pumpkin happens to be playing with at any given moment.

She ADORES books, and will pick out the ones she wants to read before nap or bedtime. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is a favorite right now, but there are quite a few she chooses over and over (like Head to Toe and Silly Sally and 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed). It's fun to see her standing her little self in front of her bookshelf, looking over her choices, and then pulling one out and "running" it over to me to read to her.

Yup, she's a sweetie, so smart and personable already. I love watching her grow and change, and I can hardly believe how much she's changed in only the last 18 months! I love my little Penguin!