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.

Today's thoughts

I was reading a blog my friend Kate forwarded me, and in one of the postings, it had a cool fun thing to do with books:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages.)
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Since I love books, here's my excerpt:

All choices you make do not have the same potential to transform the environment of your life. The decision to meet a group of friends for dinner, as a rule, does not change your life as dramatically as the decision to get married, start a business, or move to Europe. The choice to respond to an inner voice that directs you to pursue your spiritual life is obviously one that can rearrange your familiar world.

Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss

Sophie's Party Pics

Sophie Is One!!

6:02pm today marked the one year anniversary of Sophia Rose Thomassy's birth. We can't believe a whole year has gone by already. People say it goes fast, and they weren't lying! Everyday she grows more and more of her personality shines out. She's just an amazing girl.

We celebrated by having a small party at home on Saturday with family and close friends.

We had taco bar for dinner (her favorite because it includes taco meat, cheese, and avacados), and dessert consisted of an organic carrot cake with organic cream cheese icing, frosted sugar cookies, and chocolate chip cookie bars.

I had put together a slide show of pictures from Sophie's first year, and I wanted to share it here so you call could see how much she's changed this first year of her life.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I'll post some pictures from her party.

This first year has certainly been a learning experience for us all. We are so proud of Sophie for everything she does everyday. She is an amazing little girl and teaches us more than we teach her. I know she came here to do something great, and we are here to support her in that. Thank you to everyone in her life for supporting her too and sharing your love with her.

Photo Shoot

I'll write more next week after this weekend with Sophie's first birthday and party, but I wanted to post a quick entry with a few things.

I did want to post some pictures from her 1-year photo shoot though. My good friend Shelly, whose an awesome photographer, got some cool pics at the park on Wednesday. It was the hottest day so far this year, but Sophie did great and loved it.

ps. If anyone's up Saturday or Sunday morning around 7:45 or 8:45, you might turn on Fox 4 news and try to catch the First Birthdays segment...you might see someone you know!

Some pictures

Here's some pictures from the last few weeks.


Sophie coloring. I was making some cards, and she picked up a marker and started running it over a piece of paper. So I took off the cap, and art was born.



Can you tell she loves it?

This is after a long day...we were at my sister's, and she fell asleep in the swing right before dinner. Poor girl.



This is my friend Jen and her son Jonah. Jen and I have known each other since we were 2, and Jonah is 4 days older than Sophie. We went to visit them at Jen's mom-in-law's house in Jeff City.

I liked this picture, because she's banging on the xylophone so fast her arm is a blur.

Reading with Aunt Shelly at the lake.

A day on the boat (after first falling asleep on the boat).

Her first swim! She was too small last summer to go. She loves it.

Swimming with Aunt Shelly.

Competitiveness

So, when I still worked in the corporate world, I was a fairly competitive person. I wanted to do better than the other people doing my job, and I wanted people to notice it. When I first became a mom, I found myself comparing Sophie to other babies and feeling that competitive streak of whether she was developing faster than them.

I decided this wasn't the kind of mom I wanted to be, so I've been working on not comparing her or getting upset when another baby her age is doing something that she's not. Just about every developmental milestone for babies comes with the disclaimer that it is different for every baby and that if they are developing faster in one area, another area might be slower. So, when every other baby at day care was crawling and pulling up, and Sophie still just sat there, I told myself those other babies probably can't manipulate objects with their hands as well as she can and that she's still within the normal development timelines. I'm much more calm about these things now.

Until yesterday...

We went to a baby program at the public library. It was for babies 9-18 months and focused on songs and games you can do with your baby. It was cute. However, the moms sitting near me apparently were being competitive moms (or at least that's the feeling I got). Sophie sat well in my lap for about 5 minutes, but then we wanted to be crawling around. I let her go a little, but I didn't want her annoying all the other moms.

Well, there were 2 moms near me (we'll call them Blonde Mom and Polka Dot Mom). They both had girls too, and they and Sophie all looked about the same size. Polka Dot Mom's little girl was walking but still wobbly. Blonde Mom's little girl was crawling like Sophie. I was nice to them, but I get shy so I'm not very chatty. Maybe they thought I was rude. BM and PDM seemed to be chatting a bit, so they must have formed an alliance.

PDM commented that BM's baby and Sophie seemed about the same age. BM said her baby was 9 months; I said Sophie is 11 months. BM said "her daddy is 6 foot 4, in case you are wondering." I guess she felt defensive that her baby was as big at 9 months as my 11 month old (who, by the way, is on the small to average levels on the growth charts). I had not made a comment, and I don't think I had made a surprised face at her baby's age, since I didn't feel surprised that she was big.

PDM's baby is 11 months old as well apparently. So then PDM turns to BM and says "looks like they're doing the same things," speaking of Sophie and BM's baby. Now, reading this, it seems like an innocent comment. However, the nonverbal cues and vibe she sent out instead said "your baby is at the same developmental stage as that 11 months old, which is inferior to my 11 month old who already is walking." I felt ganged up on...at baby time at the library!!

Sophie has always been a little slower in the gross motor skills (rolling over, crawling, walking), but she excels at fine motor skills (turning pages of books, feeding herself, playing with toys). I took offense that PDM was making a general comparison based on one skill Sophie exhibited, because I know she's a smart girl and has mad problem solving skills. That competitiveness started eeking out of me again, but I stuffed it back and didn't comment at the moms...just smiled. Then I felt pity...if they need to make themselves feel better, then go right ahead. I know Sophie is on track, and she gets praise everyday for the things she's learning.

Besides, I decided that those moms just needed something to console themselves with since Sophie was by far the cutest of the three.


(one day she'll get some teeth...I'm sure of it)

The Amazing Flying Piggles

This is Piggles (also known as Hannah), one of our 5-year-old kitties.

Some of you may know we've been dealing without consistant air conditioning in our house for about two weeks now. Luckily it's been fairly mild outside, so we have the windows open most of the time.

Our windows open at both the top and the bottom. We only open the bottom a little, because the kitties like to get in the windowsills otherwise. Well, it started raining this morning, so I went around closing the windows. I noticed that the screen was missing from the bedroom window next to Andy's side of the bed. This isn't necessarily unusual, because our screens pop out regularly. However, this one was in there fairly tight, and I got nervous because I found Piggles sitting in there the other day. I had chased her out and closed the window a little more. So Andy and I searched the house for her for a good 30 minutes.

Piggles apparently is a contortionist. Sometime in the night, she had squeezed herself into the windowsill and was enjoying a little snooze when the screen popped out...out of this second story window. She finally got her chance to deploy the pouch all cats carry on their bellies...she flew.

Andy found her in a tiny spot under the front of the house where the window juts out a bit unto the bushes. Luckily he thought to look there. We had to drag her out, but she wasn't fighting. She was nice and dry, and within a minute of coming in the house, she was head butting our hands for a scratch. I almost got a purr out of her. She's perfectly fine...no limping, no wet fur. Just a little shaken. Of our two cats, she's always been wary of the outside (they only go out in a cat carrier to the vet).

We said she didn't want to be outdone by her sister, who a couple months ago gave us a scare, and used up a life, by being in kidney failure. Now they're both down to about 8 lives.

I'm very proud of her for being so brave and finding a safe place. She sure did land on her feet (pun intended). Give your pets a snuggle today for in honor of Piggles. She'll sure be getting a lot of snuggles today.