Happy Birthday, Penelope Jane!

How time flies. Today PJ is one year old. How the heck did that happen!?



The day started early. PJ was wide awake at 4:30--the second time this week she's done this. Last time she fell asleep 20 minutes into one of our baby worship videos while we cuddled on the couch. This time she stayed awake until about 6. UGH. Once Abby was up and we were all fed and dressed we went out in the backyard, which we haven't done in a while, and I got some great photos of the girls playing. We celebrated at lunch by going to Portillo's, which is a Chicago-based restaurant that opened a location about half an hour from here. Totally worth the drive--absolutely the best cheeseburgers ever. Came home and she took a really good nap (especially considering that she slept on the way up there), and then after dinner we went for a walk around our little neighborhood park.

Tuesday was her one-year well-baby checkup. She's 22 lbs 6 oz (80th percentile) and 30 inches long (75th percentile)--the same percentiles from her 9 month exam, so she's holding steady with her growth. She's got 6 teeth in--the top four and two bottom--and ten words: mama, dada, no, yes, ming or mih (milk), Abbah or Abababa (Abby), Wig (The Wiggles), hi, bye (often with a "Heil Hitler" hand up in the air) and peek (peekaboo). She plays peekaboo, claps, dances like she really knows what she's doing, and follows simple directions like "Go get Abby!" or "Take this to Daddy." She's really good at cleaning up--anytime she sees you putting things into a container, like the blocks into the bin or the memory game tiles into the bag (or the laundry into the machine--I'm SO glad I have a front loader and the girls can help!), she comes over to help. And whenever she sees me pull out the diapers she stands up and walks away, saying, "No no no no no..." Annoying as it is, it always cracks me up.



She's so affectionate. She crawls in my lap and just sits down now, doesn't even try to nurse, just wants to hang out. The other day she was standing on my lap, facing me, and put her head on my shoulder and began to pat my back and say, "Mama."



She is a climber! She gets up on Abby's step stool all the time, she crawled onto the TV stand in Dan's office today and also into the sandbox, as you can see in the photo. She gets under and on top of things way more often than Abby ever did. She goes up the stairs with ease, and has even started going up ON HER FEET! She's also really good at going down if it's just one step, like from the foyer into the living room.



The one thing she's not doing yet is eating solids. I give her something at every meal, and she'll gnaw on it, but she still has the tongue-thrust thing going on and it almost all comes right back out. So far she's tried apple, cucumber, Cheerios, peas, carrots, broccoli, egg, toast, and pancake. She also has a sippy cup with a straw that she's quite good at drinking out of. I keep meaning to pump and put the milk in and see if she'll let someone else "feed" her that way--oh the freedom that might be just around the corner for me! WHY haven't I tried this yet! She still wakes 3-6 times a night to nurse, which is a bummer for me, but oh well.



She and Abby are really playing together now. It's so adorable. Just tonight Abby had her in total stitches. I was upstairs and could hear PJ cracking up; Dan said Abby was tickling her and just being silly, and PJ was totally into it.



She's a slapper, a screecher, a Mama's girl, and a major, major drama queen, but she's completely lovable and adorable and I can't believe she's one year old. Happy birthday, PJ!!!