The truth about Penny

I sent some of these photos to my sisters awhile ago telling them that up to that point I had only forwarded the most flattering photos of my little Penpen and that now it was time they knew the full truth. Now, dear reader, you too must know the full truth.

Ohh, the truth about our little Penny is, she drools a lot. She also generally has fairly chapped cheeks and the hair on the crown of her head floats about constantly like a wispy tuft of angel hair blowing in the wind. She loves to yell greetings or the need to be noticed with a very loud, “AH.” She also kicks. Most babies seem to like to kick but then grow out of it, but Penny continues to find kicking a great outlet for those times when smiling simply isn’t good enough for expressing all her happiness – kick kick kick if I’m reading a book she really likes, kick kick kick when Mike comes home from work. She also yanks and pulls very fiercely on ears – Abe and Mike’s ears in particular (perhaps because they are not covered by hair). When she sees food she hopes to eat, she has a very particular laugh – a laugh that can switch very subtly from excited to panic depending on how long it takes for her to receive the food she’s after. When chewing on a particularly tasty toy or book, she makes a very contented and chewy, "num, num num," sound. It generally gets quite a few laughs as it is reserved for non-food items. When eating real food, she occasionally makes a sound like she is repeatedly spitting watermelon seeds from her mouth. She is the first of my babies to give kisses . . . although, so far only Abe and I have been very willing to receive these open mouthed wet drooly bonks on the face or head. She gets called lots of little names that contain the word "pen" -- pigpen, penpal, etc. But most often she is "Tumbles" (which came from calling her my little tumble weed), or "Trublums" (which somehow came from trouble maker). When we are praying she looks about like, "this is GREAT!" and then begins banging on her high-chair and yelling loudly and happily. She once blew a raspberry so well that spit flew onto the face of a man on the bench behind us in church. (We had no idea she'd been so succesful until hearing peels of laughter from behind). She seems to give our other children attention according to their respective ages -- more for Abe, less for Goldie. She assumes that anything anyone ever has is her very own to yank away and put in her mouth as she pleases, and she prefers TV cords, paper of any type, those springy door stops, and very muddy shoes to all else. I’m not sure if the very fair and accurate picture painted above would cause the normal reader to think, “That baby is the greatest thing on earth,” but oddly, all of it causes us to think that very thing. I can’t really explain why those things make me so happy that I feel slightly like I can’t catch my breath, but it’s very nice that they do.