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.