Oh my... do I remember you as a baby!  We couldn't go anywhere without you stopping people in their tracks.  It was kind of embarrassing!  Most babies look like plucked chickens but you didn't.  Your skin was perfect, your face was round, and your little lips helped me finally understand why it is that people call them 'rosebud' lips. 

 I should have known it was going to be a real problem when you were about a month old.  I took you to the CHEA convention at the Disneyland Hotel.  We entered Sono Harris' workshop about children's literature (she likes Charlotte Zolotow too!) and was immediately surrounded by dozens of ladies.  Honestly it was a bit suffocating!  Poor Mrs. Harris kept trying to start her workshop but everyone kept oohing and aaahing over my baby so I threw a blanket over our heads to make people go away.  Talk about embarrassin'.

It was like that until you were at least four.  (People aren't as surprised by pretty little four year old girls I guess.)  You got so many people commenting on your physical features that we finally taught you to reply, "Thank you, God did a good job."  If I had it to do over again, I'd have used "God DOES a good job."  Oh well, it helped keep your head from swelling to immense proportions.

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Jenna spent her birthday playing, eating mud pie, and opening her fun presents.  She received a fun set of walkie talkie 'cell phone' style that even take pathetic digital photos.  For eight batteries a piece you'd think they'd do better!  Of course, she was also enamored with her little Webkinz pug dog.  I know her sister Challice brought over a much beloved gift but at the moment, I can't remember what it was.

Saturday, Jenna, Andra, Carol, Gracie, Hannah, Bethany, Moriah, Amy, Challice, Morgann, Teresa, and I went bowling!  We played two games on two lanes (giving the little guys bumpers to aid their probability of actually hitting a pin.  It wasn't necessary on Andra's part.  That kid is a natural bowler.  I managed to do better on my second round after a pathetic first game.  It has been too long since I bowled.  Maybe I should go back again.  hmm...

Anyway, I think Jenna had fun.

Happy Birthday to you... Happy Birthday too you...

I blogged about Jenna's success in Grammar but today I remembered something that should have told me she'd be a grammatical fiend!

Picture a child with a ten-pound-diaper.  (Strains of Ten Pound Hammer waft through the room)  Mom calls child (Jenna) over and says, "Are you soggy?"  Repeat a dozens of times a week for the first two years of the child's life and it should be no surprise (although it was) when your two year old comes up to you during potty training and says, "I need to sog."  We laughed.  We howled.  We took her to the sog recepticle aka.  'pot'.

The killer was the day she did it all by herself without announcing the intention to 'sog' so that her underwear wouldn't become soggy.  She rushed in, after using the facilities, and exclaimed with triumph, "I sogged!"

We used to sing the song "Baby Bumblebee" to Jenna and called her Jenna Bee (her middle name is Blythe)

We'd sing,

Be my little baby Jenna bee

Be a bee be a bee be a Jenna bee

You're the cutest Jenna you can be

You can be, you can be, you're my Jenna bee...

Well, I do remember an impromptu rendition of...

Oh my little Jenna she did sog

She did sog, she did sog, she's a Jenna sog

She can sog and she can produce logs....

We stopped that fast.  The last thing she needed was to announce in public that she needs to log and sog.

Jenna has absolutely astounded me with her grasp of Grammar.  With no prior discussion of anything remotely resembling a noun, verb, or preposition, I started her in a seventh grade textbook, Easy Grammar.

The first thing Easy Grammar does is teaches the student all common prepositions (just over 50) and has them memorize these.  Once memorized, the student attacks all sentences by crossing out prepositional phrases.  With few exceptions, Jenna can spot a prepositional phrase a mile away.  Occasionally she'll stop at an adjective and miss the object of the preposition.  For example, John crawled under the red car and scrambled out the other side.   She'll occasionally cross out 'under the red' and miss the fact that red isn't a noun but since she hasn't studied adjectives, this does not surprise me.  What does surprise me is the fact that she won't miss the compound verb crawled and scrambled.  The kid is a whiz.

At any given time you can find her curled in a corner, on the couch, or sitting at the table with her book.  Odd sounds of, 'they did go', 'Tom ate and drank', 'coach and team cheered' echo through the room as she reduces each sentence in her workbook to its lowest common denominator.  And people say grammar is nothing like math!