Penny's growing up so fast!

"Tor tor tower" power! - Penny playing with mega blocks in our living room

Yup, that would be the main sentiment... Penny's learning so many new things each week we're so proud of her and wish we could spend more time with her. Her grandparents, however, are a truly wonderful lot who love and teach her much. I have time now only for a quick random list of her relatively new skills and antics!

- nodding her head
- sitting down "the normal way" (yes, it has to be learnt too) and saying either "zhuo" or "down" when she does that
- bow (for "blow this balloon please!")
- feeding herself with a training spoon (still needs help with spooning but she's great with bringing the food to her mouth)
- drinking from a straw!
- identifying many, many objects correctly around the house, and in her books, such as a new favourite, Daddy's old Richard Scarry's Best Story Book Ever. It really is a great one
- pretending to sleep and snore
- saying "wait"
- answering quite accurately many of our questions
- saying "Mama" and "Dadda" a lot more consistently and meaningfully
- successfully climbing up a Tiny Tykes slide and popping down through a hole
- understanding so many of our requests and commands such as "bring the book to Daddy"

She's also been able to mimic quite a few animal sounds and snoring noises for quite some time now. That girl! Like all of us, however, she is prone too, to throwing tantrums and being disobedient at times, and shall need lots of prayer and patient discipline.

She's reached that stage...

(Pepe enjoying a book on baby expressions with Grandma)

We remember when a friend shared with us how her little boy would love to hear the same stories over and over again. Well, it appears our little Penelope has reached that stage, and her two all-time favourite books are--without a doubt, "The Tale of (Naughty!) Peter Rabbit" and "Cleo The Cat".


She often gets quite animated when we read her these stories, loving the thrills of the "running, running, running" part in the first, and the ups and downs of Cleo's day in the second as she wakes up, yawns, blinks, and goes in search of a friend and home. Penny's sympathetic "Oh," when we reach the line "Cleo needs a friend, Cleo's all alone," is really cute. Then when the story's over, she gives us the book again, or turns to a certain page, and nods her head insistently. Round two...