Fairly good weekend, though pretty busy. I don't remember it as a flow of events so much as a series of snapshots, though.

Thanks to Auntie K.T., Penny now gets to participate in Hawaiian shirt Friday with Dad! I almost feel left out...

Saturday we ran errands, and then after Penny's nap we went down to take my mom her Pampered Chef stuff and let them play with Penny for a while.

My parents habitually carry around with them these enormous insulated mugs. Usually, they're full of tea, and they let Penny snitch ice cubes from them. (Penny loves ice cubes. Matt and I don't use ice at home, so it's a treat she gets only when we go out to eat or when we visit Grandmom and Grandad.)

My dad decided that Penny needed her own cup of ice, so he went into the kitchen to get it for her. Penny picked up his mug and followed him. The lid was on it, so Matt and I, assuming that there wasn't much in his mug but ice and maybe a little tea, let her go.

It turns out that non-sippy cup lids let a pretty astonishing amount of liquid out if you tip them.

"Wow," said Matt, "you're soaked in tea."

"Um," said my dad. "That's not tea. It's wine."

By then, it was not only on Penny's clothes, but in her hair. She smelled like the Littlest Wino Ever for the rest of the day.

Here's hoping that comes out in the wash...

Sunday at the grocery store, I was perusing the meat. "How do you feel about pot roast?" I asked Matt.

"Mmmmm."

I had to go back to the vegetable section, because there's some kind of law about pot roast and potatoes, and I don't keep potatoes in the house anymore.

We had it for dinner, and it was lovely. I don't know why I don't make pot roast more often; it's an easy fire-and-forget kind of meal.

Penny only took an hour-long nap, though. Which was unfortunate, because I'd been intending to take a nap while she was down. I put her to bed, then went to bed myself. I was asleep for maybe half an hour when the phone rang and woke me up. Then another half-hour of sleep, and Penny woke up.

Sigh.

And she woke up in a bad mood (she's like me that way, but hasn't yet learned to just lay quietly in bed until she's awake enough to be sociable) so I couldn't go back to sleep, either.

SIGH.

But after I got up, Matt took Penny to meet Braz and Emma at a baseball game, so I got a couple of hours to relax, anyway.

Most adorable moment of the weekend: I said to Penny, "Do you want to go on a trip? To see Uncle Braz, and Emma?" Penny beelined for the door, chanting, "Em-ma! Em-ma! Em-ma! Em-ma!" I don't think she stopped until Matt actually carried her out to the car.

I don't know if she remembered who Emma is and really wanted to see her that much, or if she just likes the name (it's one of precious few she can pronounce easily) or what, but it was extremely adorable.

After they got back, we all packed up again and went over to visit the Brandts, since Matt hadn't yet met Sarah, and I hadn't got to hold her when I'd gone to see them in the hospital.

Sarah was in a much better mood, this time, so we got to hold her and see her at her cutest. So little...

Sarah cuddled right up to Matt and fell asleep on him. Matt was quite obviously enchanted.

"He looks just about ready to have another, himself," I commented.

"You're the one who's been saying not yet!" he retorted. (Well, that's true. I'd like Penny to be a little more self-reliant before I do this again. Talking in sentences, at least working on potty training, that sort of thing.)

Penny, after a moment of indignation at her Mama holding some other kid, came over to look at Sarah, and said, "Bay-bee!"

"Yes, sweetie, that's right! Baby!"

Penny said, "Bay-bee!" one more time, then turned around to look for Emma, who was actually, yknow, interesting. (Matt tried to get Penny to pat or kiss Sarah, but Penny was, for the most part, wholly uninterested in anything but getting Braz and Emma to play with her.)

I keep planning to go to bed early, and not quite managing it. But I slept a little better last night. Penny only woke up twice, and both of those times were within half an hour of each other.

The second time, I was the one who went into her room. I found her standing up in her crib, wailing. I hugged her and did the usual soothing, "It's okay, everything's all right, Mommy's right here..."

She calmed down quickly, and after a moment she held up her blanket and said something in her little toddler-jibbajabba language. "I don't understand, honey," I said. She very deliberately took my hand and put her blanket into it, and said something. I held a corner of the blanket in each hand. "What do you want?" I was not going to get into a game of peekaboo at 1:30 in the morning.

But she didn't want to play peekaboo. As soon as I picked up the blanket in both hands, she very carefully laid down, curled up on her stomach, in her favorite sleeping position.

So I put the blanket over her, then her quilt. I found Piglet and laid him next to her, and she tentacled out an arm to pull him into a cuddle. Bemused, I said, "Okay. Sleep tight, sweetie," and went back to bed.

Could it be that she's been waking up crying all these weeks simply because she's kicked the covers off and is cold but has no idea how to get back underneath them?

Sheesh.

--Liz