So much for the quiet whimper just as she's put down. Penny started crying last night the instant Matt hit the stairs with her, and cried for something like 15 minutes before she finally conked out.

On the other hand, she slept through the night.

Is that our choice? Quiet whimpering as she goes down with a wakeup or two during the night; or 10-15 minutes of wailing at the beginning of the night with peace afterward?

Given her mood this morning (Happy! So happy!) I guess I'd take Door Number Two, but it'd be tough.

Of course, yesterday was kind of unusual, also, in that she'd barely napped at all (and we know what being overtired does to people's moods) and we were putting her to bed half an hour before the usual time.

So I still have some hope that she'll eventually figure this out. Go to bed, sleep through the night. No crying necessary.

I am not at work today. I'm at the beach.

I'm wearing a sundress, and slip-on denim sneakers with no socks. And a hat.

I should be at the beach. Maybe I'll load some beach-y music onto the iPod while I'm wading laboriously through my spreadsheets again today.

I'm wearing a hat. Why did I put on a hat this morning? I own several, but never wear them. I don't know what possessed me to put one on this morning, aside from the fact that my hair looked even stupider than usual and there's just something about a cute sundress that screams, "Hat!"

Penny thought the hat was the height of hilarity. You have to understand; for a long time there, we played this game with her where we'd put a (dry) washcloth on her head and say, "There's a cloth! On your head!" until she pulled it off. Now we are paying for that bit of amusement - anything we put on her head, including hoods or hats or sunglasses, gets pulled off immediately. No sun protection for Penny!

So when she saw me wearing a hat, that was just too funny. She kept watching me expectantly, waiting for me to pull it off. She reached for it once, and I was going to let her pull it off for me, but she just patted it and then sat back with a huge grin. I could almost hear her saying, "Mom! There's a hat! On your head!"

--Liz