Stages

I love the stage that Penny is at. You know, the one where she can't do anything. I don't have to worry that she'll fall off the bed or down the stairs or stick her finger in an outlet. Not like the other kids. (Although, I do have to protect her from being carried around upside down by Peter--true story.) Actually, I love all the baby stages. When they can roll over onto their stomach and they are so proud of themselves and they do it over and over again. Only you have to keep coming and turning them back over because they get stuck on their stomach with their face in the floor and then they cry. But this beginning stage is so cute. Penny is like a little sack of potatoes only not so lumpy. She's also like a bobble head. She likes to try to lift her head and look around but her head is wobbling all over the place. I try to support her head but it's hard when she's so determined to look around and it is bobbling around so much.

Happy One Month Birthday, Penny!

Penny just passed her one month birthday on Thursday. She stayed awake most of the day and has been staying awake during the day ever since. She slept all day for her first month and her awake time was usually around 2 or 3 am to 7 or 8 am. It's so funny how abrupt the change was. She already looks different. She's bigger and more alert. I think she's even about to grow out of something. Sometimes it seems sad how fast they grow up but I am not going to miss this last month--what I can remember of it.

Bad Book Review

So, I read this really terrible book recently. It was really bad. As in stupid. But I read the whole thing. Maybe I shouldn't admit that. But I had to find out what happened to the one nice girl. The book was called "Dangerous Kiss" by Jackie Collins. First of all there was no dangerous kiss. There was a little kissing but nothing that would elicit such a title. Secondly, all the characters were beautiful people. Jackie Collins describes everyone in the most glowing and complimentary terms...even the ugly people were paragons of beauty. The book is about rich, powerful, famous people in Hollywood so of course there are a lot of good looking people but come on. Thirdly, almost everyone is bad. Actually, a lot of them are currently happily (and faithfully) married but had plenty of "fun" with drugs, sex, and rock'n'roll, or whatever, before. The main character is this beautiful (of course), powerful, independent woman. She and her husband are supposedly happily married and deeply in love but she makes a life changing decision without him and he is understandably upset and she yells at him for trying to control her. She slept with her best friend because she thought her husband was dead and then when he came back-alive-she didn't confess because she thought he was dead so it's okay, right? Which takes us to number four: ridiculous plot lines. The nice girl in the book decides to get revenge on a guy (date rape) and he manages to knock her out, kidnap her, get her hooked on heroin and marry her. He does all of this because she is going to inherit a huge fortune when she turns 35. The point of all of this is don't read Jackie Collins books. They are stupid.

Pictures of Baby

Okay, now that the baby is 3 1/2 weeks old I can post some pictures. Hopefully I won't fall asleep while I'm working on this. I fall asleep almost every time I sit down. It makes it hard to read a whole story to the kids. Okay here are some pictures of Penny. Most of them were taken today.



This one is weird because she looks like a doll.

New Baby!

Well, we are now 6. Penelope Jane Harrison was born on December 29th at 7:35 am. She was 2 weeks early (scheduled induction) but still managed to be 8 lbs and 20 inches long. I can't imagine how big she would have been if we had waited 2 more weeks! The doctor thought it would be better to have her a little early so we could avoid shoulder dystotia (sp?) which is when the babies shoulder gets stuck under the pubic bone and the baby can break her collar bone or have permanent nerve damage. We didn't want that so I had an amniocentesis on Tuesday to make sure her lungs were developed enough and they were fine so we went in on Sunday evening and she was born Monday morning. Luckily she was a girl because that the only name we had and that wasn't even set. Eleanor calls her Penny-Dora. She wanted us to name her Dora if she was a girl and Boots if the baby was a boy. Sarah got her to agree to only name the baby Boots if it was monkey so that was good. We are thrilled to have her in our family and now I have to go take care of her....

Pictures will be added soon. To see pictures now go to Janis' blog. You'll find the link on the side bar.

VP

I was thinking recently that John McCain can't possibly win this election...unless, maybe, he chooses a woman for his running mate. I know a lot of people say that it's just a trick to pull in the female vote, trying to get the Hillary supporters that haven't decided to support Obama yet. But, I don't care. I think it's brilliant. I haven't really decided who to vote for yet but this makes McCain's position a little stronger for me. Besides, even if he is just trying to get more votes it's not like he can change his mind once he's president. If he wins she's the vice president and that's that. And I think the argument that she, or Obama for that matter, doesn't have enough experience is a weak one at best. Often a 'lack of experience' means a person can look at problems from different angles that people with a lot of experience can't or don't because that's 'not the way it's done.' Oooh, and I think I'm one of these 'swing voters' that I keep hearing about on the radio. I could go either way, really.

But I just read this book, "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and some other guy...Oliver Relin...about a guy (Greg Mortenson) who builds schools in Pakistan. It's really good. I totally recommend it. But the point is that it's made me think about the Middle East and how each candidate plans to handle humanitarian aid and post war (or mid-war, whatever) relief for the people in that region. I care about their positions on the war itself but...this may be more important. Anyway, it's a good book and it makes you think. I told Sam the story a little and he thought it was interesting and it gave me a good way to explain about how there are good people all over the world and not all Muslims are terrorists and how important education is.

Young Love

Oh, I don't even know where to start. Sam's girlfriend broke up with him. Yeah, his girlfriend. A couple of days ago I picked Sam up from school and Kathy, a little girl in his class, told him goodbye and ran off. Then he told me she was his girlfriend. I didn't know if he meant girlfriend girlfriend or a friend that is a girl although he has lots of friends that are girls and doesn't call them girlfriends. Anyway, the next day he said they were in love. Then today he told me they broke up. I asked him if he was okay or if he was sad and he said a little sad but he doesn't seem all that broken up about it. He said they were still friends which is good. I told him no more girlfriends until he's 16. I didn't realize that I'd have to talk to my 5 year old about dating. I figured I could wait until, like, 4th grade or something. Jeff and I had no idea what to say when he said he had a girlfriend. So, I guess I'm relieved that they broke up (hilarious) so I could tell him some of the rules of dating...ie, No Dating! Luckily his first heartbreak hasn't seemed to rough. He's playing puzzle challenge with Eleanor right now.