After Penny showed up it didn’t take long for her to feel completely at home. She began to open up and really let her character show. Her favorite color is purple and she LOVES cats. The problem is that the cats try to ignore her most of the time. Again, they TRY to ignore her. She makes that a bit difficult at times.

Bob wasn’t impressed when Penny tried to nap with him.

Chester tried napping under the tree, but Penny found her there, too.

“Come here, Chester, and let me snuggle you!!”

Bob can’t even look outside without being disturbed.

“Bob, do you see the red cardinal? Huh? Do you? It’s right there! Bob! Bob! Are you listening to me?! It’s on the right, not the left!”

I knew that things had gotten bad when I came home and found Penny playing Hide ‘n’ Seek with Bob.

“I found him!! He’s right there!”

I don’t think that Bob wanted to be found.

Finally, the Friday before Christmas I decided that I would give the poor cats a break. I knew that things would be a bit slow at work so I took Penny in with me. I thought there would be enough busy work to keep her occupied. After I told her about the little trip she was so excited!

I even made her a new shawl to wear. She was very excited when she saw the kittens on it playing with purple yarn. And since she’s a girly-girl I threw some lace on it, too. With her new shawl and matching bow she was ready to go to work!

I tried to explain to Penny what I do at work, but she’s still a bit young to really understand. So I decided to let her just watch for a little bit.

I explained to her about bills of materials being a lot like a recipe, but I don’t think that her mother did a lot of baking because she thought cookies come from the store already baked. I guess that I’ll have to show her how to make cookies at some point!

She wanted to try to read the words on the screen. She managed to read a few of them, but she’s still young so a lot of the words I was using weren’t in her vocabulary.

Then she asked me for a piece of paper and a pencil so that she could take notes.

I had to get up and speak with a coworker. When I returned to my desk Penny had decided that my job was easy enough for her to handle it.

Luckily her arms were too short to reach the keyboard or the mouse, so no harm was done. She sat there for quite a few minutes writing scribbles on my paper and telling me what she was doing. I have no idea what she thought she was doing, but she was happy so that was all that mattered.

I finally had to get some work done so I had her do some ‘filing’ for me.

She enjoyed herself immensely!

That night she couldn’t stop telling Gary about all the fun she’d had, about meeting my coworker Elaine and how she wants to work in an office when she grows up. To Gary’s credit he was very patient with her.

After posing for a picture to commemorate their first Christmas together, Gary had a surprise for Penny.

She squealed in delight as she unwrapped the gift and found her very own kitty!

She has named him George and carries him around with her all of the time. The cats are FINALLY getting some peace and quiet!