More News from Ohio

Penny had all kinds of fun while we were home in Ohio. She got to spend lots of time cheering up my mom. Though she was tired much of the time, my mom had fun feeding Penny and even babysitting on occasion. The chemo is tiring, but doing its job; so keep up the good prayers and she should be doing great by the end of the year.

Penny was a bit distracting while we were playing cards at Grandma & Grandpa Saluke's house. She INSISTED upon playing peek-a-boo, which makes it impossible to concentrate on the game. Penny enjoys peek-a-boo enough that she has known how to play it with sheets for some time. Between raucous giggles, Grandma managed to collect the queen of spades a few million times and Grandpa snuck by with next to no hearts. Grandpa's sneaky... you'd think he's at a disadvantage because he can't see the cards as well, but not so.

While mom was in chemo, we visited my high school and popped by the Packard Museum across the street. Dan really enjoyed the classic cars. There was even a stylish roadster just Penny's size. Though nothing was behind glass, we resisted the urge to pop her onto the seat for a photo. Darned museum training...I could see in my head the curator shaking a finger at me. It was all a bit too much excitement for Penny, though, and she spent the second half of our visit asleep in her stroller.

Can you believe it is the 40th anniversary of landing on the moon? To celebrate, we visited the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum, just an hour North of Dayton. Ohio is home to 24 astronauts and the birth place of the Wright Brothers. It is our long-standing ties to aviation history that is celebrated on the Ohio state quarter. We had fun seeing how the prerequisites for becoming an astronaut have changed over the years. Dan is convinced Penny wants to be an astronaut because she really enjoys being upside-down.

It was wonderful seeing all my family back in Ohio. Unfortunately, they think I'm a terrible liar at this point. For months I've been saying that my arm hasn't really made any progress. Back in June I called the neurologist to see about making an appointment. When I told him I had better range of motion, but it felt like the other muscles were compensating for the dead nerve he said don't bother to come in. By the time I was in Ohio, though, my arm was doing great. I can do jumping jacks again (not that I intend to, but it is at least possible)! Of course, it was too late by that point to make an appointment. At this point, I think I just have to gently strengthen my arm to get it back up to speed. Yay! Thanks for all the great prayers!

Penny's Baptism

Our whirlwind US tour now brings us to Ohio for Penny's baptism. Penny survived with flying colors - actually made it through Mass and then the baptism without crying. She did find some of the comments during the homily very inspiring, though, and added her own thoughts in her loudest voice. She does enjoy yelling a fair amount. You can see my brother John, in the role of godfather, and my grandfather (who baptized me back in the day). I was so glad Grandpa was able to perform the baptism - his vision makes the reading challenging these days, but he did a great job. Penny's godmother couldn't make it, but my Aunt Rose did a great job as proxy. After the ceremony, we had a good time catching up with my family (we had a few out of town guests come by!) at a little reception my aunts put together. Penny enjoyed playing with the cousins her age, whom she hadn't seen since Christmas, then curled up in her carseat for a quick nap. It was a very full day - lots of exciting people and sights to take in.

We have a little less than a week left here in Ohio before we head to NYC for a little more time with Dan's parents and then down to Grenada for August and the start of classes. In the meantime, Penny is teaching my sister how to work her new iPod Touch, bringing smiles to the folks in the oncology ward during Mom's chemo appointments and generally having a blast exploring all kinds of new people and places.

The learning spurt she had before we came to the U.S. has indeed impressed the many grandmas, great-grandmas and other new parents. While home, she has learned how to climb stairs (a skill thoroughly used when Dan and I went to a movie and she went searching downstairs and upstairs for us). She is also eating a bit more solid food as we introduce her to cherries, mangoes, peas and other fascinating new textures. She's nowhere near her cousins in quantity of food, but we're going for variety at this point. I'm hoping to be able to stop making special Penny food and just blend up what we're eating as soon as I can.

Going shopping has been a bit of a shock. After going to the baby store in Grenada, I knew I didn't want to go back there ever. There is JUST no reason to pay $40-80 USD for a pair of shoes. I got three pairs at a store for $15 USD. I got a few sizes, though, since we're not exactly sure when she'll learn to walk. She wore some cute shoes for her baptism and has already browned the toes with her eager crawling at the reception afterward. We all did a little garage sale hopping as well and Penny should have a wardrobe to last through til next summer at least - a feat I'm pretty proud of. Yay! It'll be interesting to see how our shopping fits in the suitcases ultimately. I'm hoping I didn't get too carried away.

Back in the Ol' US of A

We have been enjoying my in-laws' hospitality for almost ten days now. One of our first tasks (among a million shopping trips to stock up on necessities for our return to Grenada) was to send our camera to get the flash and other issues repaired, so we're short of pictures for a bit. A crying shame, really, as we're having fun visiting all the fun little people who have arrived since our last visit.

Last weekend we had a blast playing Settlers of Catan with our NYC cousins. We had too many players, so had to do teams, which actually works pretty well when you've got two little ones who require periodic breaks for entertainment and feeding. I was sad to miss the game finale, though, due to an emergency snack/bath/nap combo.

We followed that up with a visit to my best friend from college, whose daughter is now a cuddly two-months old. Penny REALLY enjoyed visiting with her. She loved emphatically patting her diaper and trying to crawl into the bouncy chair with her (despite our repeated insistence that the chair was a ONE passenger vehicle). Our visit was also a bit of an experiment to see what to expect when roadtripping with an infant. Overall, not bad, though Dan may not have enjoyed the chauffeur-style seating arrangement. The trip was maybe a couple hours longer than it would have been with just two of us, but it may be healthier to do more extended stops in the grand scheme. In general, I've been really proud of how tolerant Penny is with all our traveling, constantly changing sleeping arrangements, etc.

Tomorrow we get to hang out with cousins visiting from Florida and their little one. Since he's closer to Penny in age, I'm hoping he'll be able to hold his own with Penny a bit better. Then it's off to Ohio for Penny's baptism. It'll be too cool to have my grandfather, who baptized me, also baptize Penny. I just hope she doesn't wriggle away from whomever is lucky enough to be her carrier at the time.