Boy, I'm a slacker...

I really mean to update this thing more than once a month, but I'm just too lazy to do it.
Let's see...what's happened in the last month?

Sophie currently has 4 teeth. She's going to be in junior high before she gets her 2 year molars, I suspect. She's learning more words (her current favorites are shoe, milk, neigh, and zoom). She likes to eat baby spinach with balsamic vinegar on it (she's weird). She's also starting to sport her true drama queen hat. She has a very carrying voice, so when she yells to get your attention, you lose all hearing for about 30 seconds. If she does not get her way (you do not immediately fetch the toy, read the book, or produce the beverage), she throws herself down, buries her face in the floor, and cries. Luckily it lasts less than a minute, but you feel a winkle and 3 gray hairs pop out in that less than a minute. Andy and I agree her only saving grace is that she's so darn cute when she's not crying (or sometimes when she is crying). An example was today she was mad I wouldn't let her watch Dora (she gets to watch 10 minutes of a Dora video when I need 10 minutes to regain my sanity or fill time). She was holding the DVD player remote, and while tears streamed down her face and she sobs from the heart, she holds the remote to her ear and says "hello" like it's a phone. Perhaps she's trying to call child services on me.

Its days like these I remember daycare fondly. I caved today and gave her back the pacifier at nap. I took it away about a month ago, but she pretty much has cried at naptime and bedtime everyday since then. She eventually quiets down, but after a morning of whining and crying today, I decided the pacifier in the bed and perhaps braces in the future are cheaper than lifelong therapy for both her and I. My mom told me to pick my battles, so I retreated behind the defences of the binky.

Anyway, maybe this is why I haven't blogged in a while...I have nothing nice to say. :-) Again, as my mother said, this too shall pass. Too bad it's on par with the passing of a kidney stone. I do love her, and I tell her this. She sometimes even tells me she loves me back (although she also sometimes bites me in the shoulder or sits on my head). I'll take those as signs of affection.

Andy had his annual review at work a few months ago. I asked him if he'd be doing an annual review for me since he's my boss now. I said maybe then I could get a raise each year too. I quickly recanted that though, because I wasn't sure I'd want to hear the evaluation of my performance. He laughed at least. He also takes it upon himself to clean the house on my "day off," which makes me wonder if he's hinting that I'm slacking behind on my job. I'm going to believe him when he says he does it because he knows how hard it is to be home all week and get things done. My excuse is that after being in the house all day, my coping mechanism is to not notice things that would otherwise drive me crazy (like dusty ceiling fans).

Anyhow, enough ranting. Here's some pictures of the happier times (I guess we had some since Sophie's smiling in some of these).



Happy Halloween! She was a dog, because this was the costume we inherited from her cousins. I added the purple bows on the ears to advertise she's a girl dog (not sure about the intended pun yet). This is also a picture of my new haircut, although I'm going to say it's not fixed very well.



I loved this picture of her peering into the candy bucket with big eyes. She did not get to eat any candy, but she thought the boxes of Nerds made for fun shaker toys.

I bought this collapsible bucket at the dollar store for her trick or treating, and she instead used it as a hat.

This is at the pumpkin patch. She had a pretty good time, except that she's at that awkward stage where she doesn't want to sit in the stroller, but if you get her out, she instead eats dirt.

I loved this picture. She likes to climb on you when you lay on the floor, and she just tackled Andy.

She's intrigued by a green bug crawling on the driveway.

She wanted to get a closer look.

It's a plane!

Apparently coloring with chalk is exhausting.

I thought this picture was sweet. They were looking out the window at the backyard together.

Sophie is probably the oldest child to still be put in a johnny jumper. But hey...they weight limit on the thing is 25 pounds, and she's only 22. I'm using this thing as long as I can, because it keeps her confined while I take a shower. She also channels her inner ballerina and will spin in circles on one toe (it's actually very graceful...I'm very impressed by it).

This is her climbing on her step stool in her room to examine her bookshelves.

We had a giant grasshopper on the side of the house, and she was looking at it through the front window.

She had an unfortunate incident with some pita bread and hummus. Sadly, the pita and hummus didn't make it. They were eaten by this Godzilla-like creature.

Sophie's favorite past time. I'm serious when I say she'd let you read to her 24 hours a day. Every time we sit down to play, she either points to a book for you to read to her, or she'll look at it by herself. She even sits though a whole Babar book (which if you haven't read a real Babar book in a while, check one out...they're long and dense).

It was cold one day when we went for a walk, so we bundled her up. The mittens were cracking me up...it looks like she's doing the robot or something. Her hat was knitting for her by my friend Amy Pennington for her birthday...it's a birthday cake with a candle!

Here's Amy Pennington now with her little boy Aidan. We decided that Aidan and Sophie would sport their Amy Bhesania originals together at Kindermusik one day. She's an amazing knitting and made Aidan's sweater vest and Sophie's dress. Notice Aidan holding on to Sophie's dress. He's serious in that she's his and he's not letting her get away.

Back by popular demand...

...a new chronical of Sophie!

I just have not been in a blog mood lately. I'm not reading them, and I'm not writing them. I've had complaints though about my lack of posts on Sophie.

In the last month, Sophie has gotten 1 more tooth (top right) and looks like she's getting about 6 more all at once. The poor girl. She had her 15-month checkup last week, and she now weighs 21lb, 15oz and is 31 1/2 inches long. So, she's average for a girl her age, which is just fine with me. Her appetite has decreased in the past few days, but she was eating so much before that she's probably about average with other kids now. I swear, I wondered where it was going. She would eat a whole banana plus a waffle or a whole bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. One day for lunch, she ate 3/4 of an avacado, a piece of cheese, half a piece of bread, 3-4 slices of ham, and 7-8 strawberries plus her milk. Piggie girl!

Her newest trick is learning how to walk backwards. She now backs up to sit on the bottom stair or to sit in my lap, which I think it's just about the cutest thing ever. She sits on my lap and signs "book please". She wants to read pretty much all day long, which is great for her development. However, as avid a reader I am, I hate reading aloud. I do it for her, but I can only take so much (like after the first 15 books, I'm spent).

She's an awesome little girl. She's always so happy, even when she's not feeling good because of her teeth. She amazes me with out much she knows, which is more a testament to her intellegence as opposed to my guidance. Between her words and her signs, she's very good at communicating what she wants. Andy and I will just sit there and watch her play, because we're so facinated by her. We think she's hilarious, and she sometimes thinks we are too (if we're lucky). Right now she's in her crib for morning rest time. She sits in her bed and looks at books or just plays. She needs her time by herself in her bed and will ask for it. I think she just likes having time to herself without me hovering around, and I can totally understand that. She's in there talking and singing (probably her version of singing in the shower).

Here's some pictures from the last month.


Here's when she sits on the bottom stair. She's just hanging out.


She's discovered that the world looks funny when you look through a tupperware lid. She'll walk around looking through things like this with her nose mashed against it.



She loves swinging at the park, and it's a good way to spend the evening. This time, she decided she to scoot all the way up in the swing and just hang there.

Here's Daddy pushing her and making faces at her. She was cracking up.

This was after a haircut making her silly face at the camera. What color do you think her eyes are? I know they could still be changing, but when I look at them in the sunlight, they are gray with brown bits, but other times they look green.

Here's a cute face. I'm trying to grow out her hair on top so that she doesn't have bangs that start at the back of her head. We're at the awkward stage right now.

This is her newest fun thing...playing with sidewalk chalk. Notice the rainbow of colors on her face?

The rainbow would be from doing this.

We got to go to Deanna Rose with Aunt Shelly a few weeks ago. We had a great time, and it was a beautiful day.

In the goat pen at Deanna Rose.

Hey Peter...what's happenin'

Like about everyone else, I've slacked on blogging lately. I thought I'd upload some pictures and report a brilliant thing Sophie did.

Here's a picture from a not very tidy dinner session. Andy thinks she looks like Jim from The Office in this picture. Perhaps he's getting closer to discovering who her true daddy is. (We have a running joke that Sophie's really daddy is a guy named Henry Tippins who kept calling our house right before she was born.)

Okay, the next couple of pictures document Sophie's first celebrity crush. We got a flier in the mail for the American Royal, and Lance Armstrong is going to be there. Well, Sophie decided that he was hot stuff and ripped his picture out. She clutched it to her chest for the rest of the day. Luckily she happily gave him to me at nap time (my daughter's no hussy).

She decided Lance was bored and needed a ride on the Little People ferris wheel.

We've been to a couple weddings this summer where we got bubbles, so we've been using them for bubble time in the yard. I thought this picture was cool with the bubbles floating around. She likes to try and catch them.

Story time with Daddy. Andy likes to spend time with her while I make dinner or clean up the kitchen. She likes it too.

Sophie was inspired by the Olympics and aspires to become a gymnast one day (only if she can drink her milk while she performs though).

Here's an example of the chaos that is our living room everyday. I try picking up, but she immediately goes and pulls all the toys out again. I guess she can't find them when they're put away.

Here's Sophie being silly one day and crawling in circles with her eyes squeezed shut. I don't know how she kept going in a perfect circle without running into anything (see previous picture).

After crawling in cirles, she decided she needed oxygen, so she stuck her face over the floor vent.

Sophie's experimenting with fashion these days. She can't decide if this scarf is more suitable as an abaya or a handkerchief top.

Okay, now on to her brilliance. Firstly, she lately started saying "night night" when it's time for bed. We think it's too cute.

Her big accomplishment was earlier this week, we were listening to the CD she got at Kindermusik. She loves it and starts doing the movements to the songs (clapping on cue, patting her legs, swaying, etc). Well, the CD ended, so with her baby sign language we've been doing, she said "more music please." It was her first sentence!! Of course we think she's a genius, and a polite one at that.

Kindermusik

Sophie and I started Kindermusik classes today. We're going to my friend Amy's studio in Kansas, but it's totally going to be worth the 30-minute drive every week.

The class is 45 minutes long and just for babies zero through 18 months. Most of the kids in there are around Sophie's level of mobility, so it'll be great fun for her to see other kids walking and running and playing. Of course, her best friend in class is Aidan (Amy's 8 week-old little boy). She suggested we take the class together while Sophie and Aidan can be in the same class. Next semester, we'll take one of the classes Amy herself teaches.

Anyway, Sophie had a blast today. She was crawling all around and dancing to the music and really interested in what the other kids were doing. I said it was a success because she didn't cry during the class. She loves music. At home, she has this CD player with one of her CDs in it. She knows how to turn it on, adjust the volume to her liking (as high as it'll go), and skip back and forth to other songs. She'll sit there with it cranking up and dance.

This will be a great class for her, because it'll get her around other kids her age every week and let her get involved in movements and rhythm with music. Andy and I agree that our kids will need to do one physical activity and one fine arts activity growing up. We both would prefer music as the fine art, because we both did piano growing up. Looks like she might take after the music part too. We suspect her physical activity will be dance, because she wiggles and bounces at any music. Hopefully she takes after me and can at least not embarrass herself dancing (unlike her daddy, who might take someone out once he gets going).

And she walks...

Sophie took her first steps last week! For a while now, she's been just standing up in the middle of the room, but she'd never move her feet. She could wiggle, twist, stretch, and even poop without holding on to anything. She just wouldn't step though. Finally last Thursday, she shuffled one foot. Andy and I decided it counted.

Then Friday when we were hanging out in the kitchen, she stands up and just starts walking towards me like she's been doing it forever. We always joked that she'd just stand up and walk one day, and she did. She takes a few steps, steadies herself with a hand on the floor, then straightens up and starts again. It's really funny to watch her, because she'll just stop and puff out her belly or something sometimes.

I'll upload some video when I get a chance. Here's pictures of her from today though. She was putting her book on this desk thing we have, then just standing there looking at it.

It's started...

...the temper tantrums. Sophie was playing with an old cell phone, and when it flipped closed, she couldn't get it open again. She kept getting frusterated with this, and I'd help her sometimes and sometimes would just leave her to either figure it out or move on to something else. Well, after a minute, she instead just sat there and cried and screamed about it. I picked her up, and she kept screaming. I decided she wasn't hurt or sick, because a second ago she had stopped crying when I flipped the phone open again. She was just mad (and maybe tired to go with it). So I changed her diaper and threw her in her bed with some books (okay, I didn't literally throw her). She stopped crying and has been quiet now for a while.

She was going to have to get up early from nap today anyway so I could get my hair cut, so going down for nap early wasn't a bad thing. Maybe she just wanted to be alone. She loves sitting in her bed with books, and I can't blame her. I do too. If she sleeps, great. If she doesn't, that's her choice and it means an earlier afternoon nap time. Even after she stops taking morning naps, she's still going to have an hour or so in her bed in the mornings. It gives her some quiet time and me some personal time. It's good for both of us.

She's in that transition stage from baby to toddler, and I'm trying to keep up. I'm finding I'm having to discipline her now, because she's starting to test the boundaries and has the critical thinking skills to learn when something is okay and not okay. She's getting good at it. For example, when we color, I've repeatedly instructed her that crayons stay on the table and that she can't crawl around with them. Now you can see she starts to hesitate when she sits down with a crayon still in her hand...you can see the thought process of "I'm not suppose to have this on the floor." She may still do it, but the hesitation is a step in the right direction. Now when I say "crayons on the table," she immediately stands back up at the table with her crayons. It amazes me how much she understands, even though she doesn't say very many words. She can say some words though, and she's getting good with her baby sign language.

Aunt Shelly's going to come babysit tomorrow night while Andy and I go to a wedding. I think she'll have a good time, because she likes Aunt Shelly.

Sophie's 1st Tooth!!!

As most of you know, I fretted that Sophie may have to be outfitted with baby dentures. But now, at 12 months of age, she finally is getting a tooth! It's the bottom front right one. She doesn't seem bothered by it...no sleepless nights or insatiable crying. If anything, she's more tired that usual. I don't know if it's because she's able to cope with it better at 12 months than at an earlier age or if she just doesn't feel much discomfort. I'm not going to ask too many question though and just be happy with my luck.

You can barely see it in this picture (sorry for the food all over her face...it was dinnertime). In person, you can see this little white thing and you sure can feel it.

Now probably all the rest will pop through at the same time. She never has had trouble eating with no teeth...she's a master at biting with her gums.

Anyway, that's the excitement in our lives. We did have a dramatic moment this evening (dramatic for Sophie, funny for me). She has this toy that's a stuffed Tigger sitting in a little car. You pull Tigger's tail, and the whole thing vibrates. I guess it's suppose to move across the floor or something. Anyway, I pulled Tigger's tail and put it on the ground in front of Sophie. It just sort of vibrated in place. Sophie looks at it, her face crumples up, and she crawls into her closet and cries! I guess it scared her for some reason, but I couldn't stop laughing. She just looked so pitiful crawling into the closet (which is not a walk in, by the way) and trying to get as far in as possible. We took the toy and threw it downstairs to go into the toy box. I didn't want her to have nightmares of the horrible wiggling Tigger in the closet. :-)

Here's some other pictures that were in the camera.

She just looks to tiny compared to Andy.

My exciting life

So, our lives aren't very exciting these days. Sophie and I get up at 8, eat breakfast, and she plays while I clean up the kitchen (it somehow always needs cleaning every morning). She takes a nap at 10, and I indulge myself by check my email, reading blogs, or knitting. She gets up at 11:30, and she either jumps in the johnny jump-up while I take a shower, or we play or read books.

We eat lunch at 12, then run errands and play with crayons or toys or books. After shes goes down for her afternoon nap at 2, I again indulge myself again or do a few simply chores. She gets up at 4, and we play until I make dinner. We eat at 5:30 (sometimes Andy is home from work and sometimes not yet). Then Andy and Sophie play while I clean up the kitchen again, and we do something to occupy the evening (go for a walk, run errands, whatever). Sophie gets a bath and goes to bed at 8, and Andy and I have some alone time until we go to bed around 11. Then the day starts all over again.

Looking at our daily schedule, it doesn't seem very strenuous. I feel guilty for not doing more things during her naptime, but I need the personal time to keep me sane. I actually can get quite a bit done during the day. I'll vacuum a room or two while she eats lunch, or she helps me do the laundry (she likes to push the button for the light on the dryer). I figure if I can get the things done on my to-do list everyday and still spend quality time with her, then I deserve my breaks. I have to quarrel about this with myself every now.

I really love this job though. I definitely am tired by the end of the day, and sometimes I opt to go mow the lawn in favor of Andy watching Sophie for the evening, but mostly it's a lot of fun. I'm getting to read tons of fun books (such as the Madeline books), I get to play with toys like my old xylophone from 1978, and Andy and I probably use up more of the paper drawing pictures than Sophie does scribbling. My brain is atrophying, but I don't really care if it takes me 5 minutes to figure out that doubling 3/4 of a cup is 1 1/2 cups. I figure I'll learn it all again when Sophie goes to school. :-)

Here's some random pictures from the past few weeks.


This is Sophie saying hi to Kate and Jared's dog Spirit. She loves their dogs (both great danes) and isn't afraid one bit. They were more afraid of her at first, but they've come to realize she's just a small person.


This is an outfit Maw Maw made for her. I call it her strawberry shortcake romper.



Sophie decided to dunk herself in the pool last time. Guess she likes the water okay.

This is the face she makes when she's trying to convey a feeling of self pity. She's becoming very adept at expressions...it's hilarious to watch!

We both could have dozed off in the hammock at the lake. This was less than 5 minutes after getting in.

I had to include a picture of the way she stands. We think she's going to be a ballerina, because she'd prefer to stand on her tippy toes than regularly. She has quite the calf muscles already. She's very close to walking.