I am in a really, really great mood this morning.

I'm not entirely sure why; Penny woke up at 5:30 and spent most of the morning being clingy/needy/fussy, which is not usually a really good beginning to the day.

Maybe it's that we had Penny in her high chair while we were eating dinner last night, and she ate not only her bowl of mandarin orange bits, but also a bunch of pieces of tomato from our dinners, and four or five little tiny pieces of chicken from our dinner. She gagged on the chicken a couple of times - she doesn't want to chew it so much as mash it against the roof of her mouth, and I hadn't cut the first couple of pieces small enough. But she didn't spit it out, and she went back for more.

(Mind you, she was obviously eating things off her tray in order of preference, going first for the orange bits, then for the tomato bits, and only when the tomato was all gone did she pick up the chicken. But she didn't reject it altogether. Whoo!)

Maybe it's that after Penny went to bed, I had good ice cream last night with fresh raspberries sprinkled on it. (And the scale didn't punish me for it unduly this morning, even.)

Maybe it's that I was having Kevil-dreams just before Penny woke up this morning. It feels good to be Kevil. He's a bit of a worrier, but he has confidence and patience that I can only dream of. He loves his work as much as he loves his family. He's got a quick temper, but it's hard to actually catch him in an enduring bad mood.

Maybe it's that the radio played Smooth while I was on my way to work. It's a very Kevil-ish song. Santana is a pretty Kevil-ish musician, for that matter. Anyway, it's one of those songs that never fails to make me want to dance and sing. Which, by turns, rarely fails to lift my mood.

Maybe it's that my car-dancing reminded me of the way Penny was dancing last night to her little music-box toy. It plays five (or six?) different tunes, all bouncy and jazzy, and every time I hit a button, she would bounce from one side to the other, wave her arms and twist her waist... It was positively adorable. Matt took a little movie of it with his camera; I'll have to get it from him soon so I can post it.

Whatever the reason, I'm not complaining or questioning it.

The thing about a good mood is, it feels good. It perpetuates itself.

It's gonna be a good day.

Oh, Penny's doctor appointment.

She's 29 1/2 inches tall (I'd have sworn she'd have cleared 30, but maybe that's just me. Their chart says that's at around the 75% mark) and a bit shy of 26 pounds. Her weight is definitely starting to level off, though, which is good.

The doctor says that we can start replacing formula with whole or 2% milk, and when our current formula runs out, there's no need to buy more. Yay! (That stuff is really expensive. One big can of formula is replaced by about 2 gallons of milk, a savings of $10 or so. Since we go through a big can of formula about every 8-10 days, that adds up pretty quick.)

She did say that she doesn't recommend much juice, and since Penny is (ahem) well-padded, that we should go really light on it. But since I usually put all of about 1 ounce of juice (mixed with 3 ounces of water) in Penny's pre-bed bottle, I'm not too worried about it.

She looked at Penny's ears and said the tubes still look good and clear and dry, which is good news. She wedged Penny's mouth open (something Matt and I can't manage very often) and told us that it looked like her new teeth have, in fact, broken through, which is even more good news.

The doctor won points with Penny by bringing her a birthday present (some stickers, which Penny didn't care about, and a shiny purple plastic bracelet, which was a Big Hit), she won points with Matt by talking about the Cubs with him, and won points with all of us by telling us how very beautiful Penny is and what good parents we are.

And Penny mostly stopped crying about her vaccination shots after a couple of minutes. So all in all, it was a pretty good visit!

--Liz