23 Months Old

Once again Penny is keeping us on our toes with all her new developments. Her personality is shining and we are jus trying to keep up with her! :)

• Penny has the best inflections when she talks. She emphasizes parts of words with such gusto it makes us laugh. We play a little game where she says "Maaaaaaaammmmmmmyyyyy" and I respond with "Peeeeeennnnnnnnnyyyy". It's fun to see if I can make her extend her "Mommy" even longer and longer.

• New words include:
- shleep shack (sleep sack)
- shamra (camera), she also says "shmile!" when she hold it up and looks though it
- wak, wak, WAK (if we are carrying her and she wants to walk)
- up, up, UP!
- chita (sticker), and boo-boo chita (boo-boo sticker/band-aid)
- knows down and loud
- hep, Mommy, hep! (help)
- eyesh cream (ice cream, probably from all the gelato in Rome)
- Shleyo (Lucerro, Ana's puppy at daycare)
- Oh nyo! Wha happaned?
- will say "hold on tight" and "here we go" if we turn sharply in the car or when I put her in the shopping cart

• She says more words in a row now- "buppy a trol hep" ("Grumpy Old Troll needs help", from Dora) and is making sentences on her own and not just repeating us.

• We are working big time on please. "How do you ask nicely, Penny?" "Peese".

• Penny knows her full name now: "Petty Abico" and sometimes calls Gabe "Dada Abico"

• Another new word is pie-too (her word for pacifier). Incidentally we have retired the pacifier since returning home from Europe. It was used a lot on the trip and we decided to cold turkey it when we got home. We had a few naps that started with crying for her pie-too but after a couple of days she was just fine. She doesn't use it at Ana's either! Big girl.

Once or twice at nap time she has asked for it, but we just tell her she doesn't use it anymore. Then she asks for Gawry and Bumbum (Gary and Sponge Bob) and we place them next to her head and she closes her eyes and is all good.



• Still likes to back up on our laps to read her books but now we read one, and then we're on to another (usually) not the same book over and over and over (usually)

• She can now count to 10!

• She loves taking a spoon out of the drawer in the kitchen and pretending to eat with it - make-believe air soup must be yummy. Makes me think I could start tea parties with her :)

• Penny walks up the stairs almost by herself now.:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lqh_rtylFk?rel=0&w=853&h=480&rel=0]
(We had just returned home from "Mimi tumbling".)

• She'll pick up a phone (landline, iPhone or a play phone) and say "Hello? Hi. Um. Bye". It's adorable. Usually she's calling Poppy or Aunt J, and sometimes Nono and Nanay.

• She likes to collect her small toys and put them in a bag to carry them around. Quite often it's one of her 'poop' bags we put her #2 diapers in even thought I have offered up a cute little pink bag with handles. She's a kook!



And then she'll dump the whole thing and say "OH NYO!" (note cute little pink bag with handles).



• She loves her Dora keys and will take them and put them in the little hole the counter-sunk screw has on her Radio Flyer tricycle to start it. Clever!

• Penny is also such a goof. She wakes up in the morning so smiley and rolling around in her crib. Just being a big silly head. She'll stomp around the house doing these funny big steps or half bent legged walking just to be funny. She knows how to make us laugh and we LOVE that.

• In other news, a lot of things are more of a battle these days. There is often a lot of negotiating to get things completed that were once simple tasks - diaper changes, getting dressed, getting in the car seat is a BIG one since switching the it to face forward (post to come). She is definitely flexing her independence.

• "No" has come back in rotation, sometime accompanied by a long, high-pitched screech. She gets red-faced and tenses up her whole body. It's fun.

• There have been a few more time-out's for smacking mommy in the face and throwing food on the floor (that's a big one - when she is done with her meal, a simple "all done" won't suffice. Wide sweeps of the arms to clear the tray onto the floor is much more effective).

• Another big battle these days is washing and brushing her hair. In the tub she will do anything she can to get away from me while I try to rinse her hair. In order to comb it out after, she must have at the very least the "Dora phone" (also sometimes called Caillou). Even then it's a race against her realizing what I am doing. The last few comb strokes are done as I chase her around the changing table.

Alas, our baby is getting bigger and bolder, and funnier and smarter and we laugh with her constantly (not counting time-outs and "No's".)

Happy 23 months sweet Penny. We love you endlessly.

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