Busy weekend.

Except for the parts that weren't.

Saturday, I came up here to my office to meet Elizabeth and Heather for a scrapbook event. The office's conference room was the perfect place to spread out all our stuff, though as always, I got less done than I expected.

It occurred to us that since Elizabeth will soon be working only a block away, we might plan occasional events to take place after work.

After I got home, Matt and I put Penny in her stroller and took her down to the neighborhood's summer picnic, sponsored by the homeowner's association. They'd done a great job - they had activities and crafts for the kids, and all kinds of food. We got to introduce Penny to cotton candy. She was... unimpressed.

But then, Penny wasn't too excited about the whole ordeal. We'd put her in the stroller, dammit, and she wanted to be taken for a ride. She refused to get out of the stroller for most of the time we were there. She got upset when we unbuckled the straps, even.

But Matt and I had fun watching the bigger kids, until Penny got so frustrated with our refusing to push her around that she hit Matt. So we had to pack up and go home and give her a time-out. Whee. Ah, well.

Sunday morning was nice and slow, but the afternoon was busy. We'd thought about dropping in on Sarah's post-baptism celebration, after Penny'd had her nap, but Penny took a lovely, long (almost three hours!) nap. And just before she woke up, my parents showed up.

See, when the deck was built, one of the support beams was situated just a hair too close to the house to allow the access hatch for the crawlspace to swing open. So Dad brought tools and shaved off a bit of the support beam, and now the crawlspace is available again.

Which is good, because our A/C is misbehaving. Again. So we're going to need to call someone to come and look at it. Again.

Dad also brought me his belt sander, which means that eventually I'll have to go up to the Lowe's and buy some belts for it (and goggles and a dust mask and some paint) and then I'll have to actually go sand down the porch railing and repaint it, like it's desperately needed for the last couple of years.

(And before I can reach the porch railing, I'll have to figure out where Penny hid my other gardening glove so I can go out and trim the bushes, because they're sort of trying to take over the whole yard.)

Penny woke up while Matt and Dad were working on the deck, so I went up to get her. She didn't want to get out of her crib at first, until I said, "Grandma's downstairs. Don't you want to go see Grandma?"

She thought about it for a few seconds, then said, very soberly, "Yes." She let me pick her up and put her on the changing table, but then, just as I was getting her diaper on, the connections fired. "Bapa?!"

She was very upset to find Grandma, but not Bapa, in her house. I think I was only saved a tantrum because John and Sam chose that moment to show up with my Pampered Chef stuff I'd ordered from Sam. Penny loves her Uncle John almost as much as she loves her Bapa.

And then Matt and Dad came in, and Penny was in high heaven for an hour, getting to be the center of attention of her favorite people.

By the time they all left, it was too late to go to Sarah's baptism party. Ah, well. We had a nice, lazy evening.

Penny's definitely turning into a 2-year-old, but Matt and I are starting to learn how to deal with that, too; we pick our battles, mostly ignoring the tantrums but drawing a hard line at hitting or throwing things at people. She's really a pretty good kid, most of the time.

--Liz