18 Months Old!

Today I am taking a moment to reflect on a post with a similar title, while sharing that the big news today is that Penny is now 18 months old!  Though its a bit of a parent cliche, I can't help but express that I don't know WHERE the time has gone! It really sort of startled me when I sat down to write this post, when I realized that my last baby is a full-blown toddler.  Sometimes I still think of my first baby (now a very big boy) as being this age.  At any rate, here's the low down on Miss Penny:

Penny is quite the talker!  She says so many words these days I am hard pressed to remember them all.  Basically she can and will repeat just about anything we say.  Her most common words include Mama, Daddy, Buh-Puh (Cooper), hi, nana (banana), apple, boo-bear (blueberries), Ma-Mas (Grandma), Go-Gur (yogurt), cracker, sucker, diaper, duck, Ralph (our dog), truck, fish, ball, bebes (baby), gang-kit (blanket), Elmo (from Sesame Street), Elmo (also says this for the Disney Nemo character), in-cess (princess) and star.

Really though, she CAN say anything...just last night her and Cooper were playing and she started exclaiming, "Bust my buffers!"  (This is a Thomas the Train expression that Cooper uses all the time.)  Penny knows a lot of animals and the sounds they make.  The duck says "Gack Gack", the horse says "neigh", the cow says "moo", the puppy says "wuff"...all of this she knows.  What makes this so Penny is that while she knows all of this, her favorite sound is the duck sound.  A lot of the time if you ask her what an animal says, she will say, with an impish grin, "Gack Gack".  This is her version of being funny, and we love it!

Recent trip to the aquarium...but the first time Penny enjoyed it like a kid...no stroller riding for this big girl!

Penny loves to play with her babies, work wood puzzles,  ride on her Dora ride-on toy, especially when Cooper is flying around the living room on his ride-on, and play with any toy that her big brother is playing with including blocks, trains, cars, or in the playhouse outside.  She also loves to push buttons...she drives Cooper crazy with her button-pushing, quite literally.  If we are watching one of his shows, she turns off the DVD player.  If he is playing on the iPad, she likes to push the home button.  If I accidentally leave my phone in reach, she is trying to text someone.

I don't have Penny's growth stats yet...both her and Cooper have been under the weather for the last week and I didn't really want to take her in to see the doctor and get any shots while sick.  Hopefully the congestion et al will be cleared up next week and we can go in to see how she's doing physically, though after looking at pictures of Cooper at this age, she seems to be right where she should be and doing great!

Miss Penny with her first ponytail...I slave to keep all that HAIR out of her face!  I don't mind, her wild hair seems to suit her.