Growing up

I have some favorite milestones, and this is one of them: Meimei learned how to play with toys! She actually did it last week, making her about 4 1/2 months old when she started. It makes me so happy that she can entertain herself just that much better. It's great. Now I have minutes at a time to myself.  

 Yesterday Penny took an outrageously long nap. By the time she hit 3 hours, I peeked in to check on her, and this is what I saw:

 She turned to me and very excitedly said, "Train!" She was watching traffic go by, and every time a bus went by, she thought it was a train. I taught her the word, bus, and then the next times she saw one, she positively squealed it.
Penny likes to say her numbers, both in Chinese and English. She sort of understands the concept of numbers. She knows when there is one of something, and then she points out when there are two of something, usually, "Two girls!" But "two" applies to anything more than one. If there's a picture with four rabbits, she'll say, "two rabbits," because there is more than one. When she counts in English, she says, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, twelve, fteen, twenty-one!" We used to live on the 21st floor of our building.
Penny often randomly yells out, "七八!!" which means, "seven eight!!" in Chinese. If you tell her a number, she'll say the next one, up to 10. She never says 四 (4), though. I don't know why. If you tell her, "一二，一二，" (1,2,1,2) she'll start marching around. That's how the army counts while they march, like our "hup, two three four," or "Left, left, left right left." Our Ayi taught her that.
And because I love analyzing my daughter's language, I think it's hilarious that she's started to call her stuff "my's," as in, "my's crayon," as she grabs it away from her friend.

Kevin officially said adieu to his youth this weekend by turning 30. We went to the fish store and got him some goldfish. The bowl in the above picture actually really sucks and killed one of the fish, so we ended up getting a little tank.
I'm growing up, too. For the last couple days I've skipped my afternoon nap, once by choice and once by necessity. Halloween is right around the corner, and considering we're in a country that doesn't celebrate it, I'm surprised to be preparing to attend 3 different parties. Wahoo! I'll try to remember my camera.