City Girl

Penny can't quite run yet, so she doesn't know she's missing out on frolicking in wide, open fields or twirling in the hills like on the Sound of Music. She sometimes does twirl a little bit. This, along with her raised eyebrows and emphatic nodding counts as her dancing. And we dance a lot in our apartment.

Since we live on the 8th floor-- and also because I have yet to find the stairwell leading from the main lobby to the parking garage-- we take the elevator several times a day. Remember when you were little, and the elevator was practically as exciting as a roller coaster? Your stomach would lurch at the top and the bottom, and for the whole duration of the ride, you'd wobble and move, feeling dizzy and trying not to fall over? Well, I'd kind of forgotten how fun it used to be, now that my mass takes a bit more force to lurch and sway. When Penny gets on the elevator, she's recently become scared of the little gap on the floor between the building's floor and the elevator's. She won't cross over it without holding someone's hand, and often not even then. Once on the elevator, when it starts to move, she bends her knees and stares at the floor. Sometimes she'll see that I'm leaning against the wall, so she'll mimic my same pose.

Our little city girl likes elevators, but she loves parking garages.

When we get off the elevator or out of the car into the garage, she starts yelling, "A! A!" You have to be careful not to be holding her right next to your ear. She has discovered the echo and loves playing with it! Kevin and I usually join in. I'm not sure what other people might think of us, but I'm not sure I care much, either.

Today we went down to our apartment's activity room for Kiddie Corner. We were the only ones this week, but it was a great experience. We learned that right under the coffee cups is a whole cupboard of toys just perfect for Penny to play with! Penny played happily, and I talked to a couple other adults who had shown up. We also found a dried Fig Newton in the coffee table book about horses. That may be a relic from our movie night down there on Saturday....

Penny does pretty well eating at restaurants. She rarely eats much, and sometimes she gets kind of restless. Once she starts squawking, though, it's usually because she's sick of sitting in her high chair, and once she's out, she happily plays and throws silverware on the ground. We don't go to fancy restaurants for some reason.

We put up our Christmas tree this weekend, and for some reason, the lower branches often find themselves denuded of ornaments. But the top is very pretty, and is where I put my cranberry garlands.

City life is an adjustment, but Penny has adjusted well.