8 is Great

Penelope is 8 months today. Time sure flies when you're having fun! In honor of her eight great months of life, here are eight of her quirky characteristics:

1. Instead of crying like a normal baby does, she grunts with her mouth closed. It sounds something like a cross between a seal and a dying dog--very ladylike.

2. For the first several months of her life we were convinced she was going to be a thumbsucker. Now she wants nothing to do with her thumb and only cares about the pacifier. She has an uncanny ability to find them around the apartment. Just when we think we've hidden them from her, we turn around and she has another one in her mouth.

3. When she is tired, she tells you by head-butting you and then burying her head into your chest.

4. She will eat almost any food you give her--parsnips, cauliflower, prunes, you name it. And when she is full she tells you by spitting out the entire mouthful of food and smiling.

5. She can do amazing things with her tongue. As I documented in the October post "The Tongue", Penelope has an extrememly long tongue. Lately she has fingured out some new uses for this extra appendage of hers. She can use it to make an extremely loud clicking sound. And she can concentrate much better on what she is doing when she sticks her tongue out halfway. Yes, so very attractive.




6. She disovered her two bottom teeth. This has enabled her to break off pieces of crackers and rice cakes, which I have discovered buys me a few minutes to do something for myslef while she is preoccupied. Unfortunately this has also led to some very, very painful nursing sessions. And when I cry out in pain and say "NO!", she looks up at me and grins. The nerve!

7. She loves getting into her crib for nap time. I'm pretty sure this is because of her pacifier collection that lives there. When I set her down in the crib she immediately puts one in her mouth, grabs another for each hand and then smiles and claps them together with a look of pure glee on her face. She plays quietly with them for a few minutes in the dark and then conks out, still grasping a pacifier in each hand.

8. She can now say her first word: Dada. And even better, she finally made the connection between the word and the person! (This isn't exactly a 'quirk', but just me bragging what a very intelligent daughter I have.)