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Goodbye Niña

It is with a heavy heart that we share the news of Niña's passing. After a long life of nearly 16 years, of which she spent the last 8 with us, we had to put her down on Thursday morning. She had been in decline for nearly a year, when she first developed some GI problems. About a month ago, she mostly stopped eating, but did not appear to be in pain and continued to interact with us normally. My hope was that nature would take its course, and we could avoid having to make a difficult decision. However, on Wednesday night, she woke us up in the middle of the night howling.

Important parenting study

Reading this article made me feel better about our parenting skills: Study Finds Every Style Of Parenting Produces Disturbed, Miserable Adults

Communication update - long overdue

I've been meaning to post an update on Penelope's communication skills for a few weeks, but life keeps getting in the way. Anyway, here we go. Penelope has really started learning words quickly now. We can judge how interested she is in something by how fast she learns the word for it. For example, she learned the word "swing" within a day or two of us putting up the swing, to the point where we would have to use code if we wanted to talk about it without her demanding to go on the swing.

Here Kitty Kitty

Penelope has now attempted inter-species communication. We usually keep Nina out of Penelope's room. Tonight, while we were putting Penelope to bed, Nina snuck her way into the room. Penelope saw her and tried to crawl over to her, but Katie and I were in the way. Rather than go around us, Penelope looked at Nina and made the "come" sign very clearly, which we have recently been teaching her. Nina didn't seem to understand, and even if she did, her dislike of Penelope would prevent her from ever coming over. But Penelope tried to communicate anyway.

What the...

So, we've been using Amazon to get lots of baby supplies, mostly diapers and baby wipes. Today, we were supposed to get a case of baby wipes, which is good because we only have a few wipes left. When we got home, we saw that our front doormat was leaning up against the door, usually a sign that the UPS driver is "hiding" a package behind it. (Why they seem to think that this hides anything is beyond me. Our favorite was when we received a fairly large box and the driver just put the doormat on top of box.) We get to the front door, look behind the mat, and no box.

Signing with Penelope

On Saturday, I had a major communication breakthrough with Penelope. Awhile ago, Katie and I decided that we would try to introduce sign language as a bridge to talking.

That was fast

A few days ago I told you all about Penelope's cold and how we thought she got it from Katie. Well, our not so scientific new analysis is that she got it from day care, because Penelope has now given it to us! So, yes, within less than a week of starting day care, the whole family is sick. That was fast. Katie started feeling sick on Saturday, and was pretty miserable all of today (Sunday). I started feeling sick when I woke up this morning, and I'm hoping not to feel like Katie does tomorrow. Tonight we had matzo ball soup to help with the recovery process.

Daddy Fail

Well, the moment we have all been waiting for, the inevitable, happened today. Katie has always looked askance at the way I play with Penelope. I'm always careful, but I like to live on the edge, so to speak. Anyway, today, I decided to do some tummy time with Penelope. She has been getting good at holding herself seated with a little assistance. One time previously, I had positioned her so that she was sitting on her butt, but leaning forward on her arms and fists, kind of like a gorilla (a very cute gorilla).

She's on a roll

Rolling over, that is. Today, Katie went to yoga, and I stayed at home with Penelope. When Katie left, Penelope was enjoying being on her back on the play mat. Since she hadn't had any tummy time today, I flipped her over onto her belly and put her arms under her chest. She started looking around, and I went to put something away. When I came back, she was on her back! Since there was no one else to help her roll, it was clear that she did it herself. So, I put her back onto her chest to see if she could do it again. This time I watched her closely.

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