Sophie and Christmas

She had a good one.

She got progressively more excited about the unwrapping project as the day wore on. In general, we had to stop for fifteen minutes or so after each present was unwrapped so that she could play with it.

Sophie Dances

Sophie's begun to dance. By which I mean that she'll kind of jerk and shrug roughly in time with the music. It is so, so very cute.

She does "jump up and down" (in which a child, parent or stuffed animal's name is called out in a sing song to do some jumping up and down); she positively adores "ring around the rosy"; and tonight she started shrug-dancing to the "Elmo ABC" video on YouTube (which she asked for by name, just after "Elmo Duck", which she also adores).

Stand Back...

It's about to get all scatological up in here.



So Sophie's been showing a heartening amount of interest in the potty lately.

"Mama! Dada! Poopay!" she'll shout, and rush over to the potty where she'll open the lid, peer in the bowl and generally inspect the thing.

She also enjoys standing on the lid of the potty and hiding behind the towels on the wall behind her.

A possible drawback of this recent potty-centric fascination is the issue of toilet paper. She likes to pretend to wipe. But toilet paper, or tissue paper, is also what we use to blow her nose. So she'll often mime wiping her butt and then proceed immediately to wiping her nose.

With my advanced powers of forethought and prognostication, I fear that this will one day lead to an unspeakably unfortunate incident.

It has already been about a year since we've been able to have toilet paper on a roll in the bathroom. This, after a parent who shall remain here nameless said something like "Oh well, it's not like it's our bathroom. And it keeps her entertained" in a hotel room in San Francisco. Part of the appeal of the potty is, I think, that it gives her immediate access to the toilet paper roll.

Still, everything's heading in the right direction. More often than not, she'll deposit an offering, whereupon Mommy and Daddy and Sophie will all applaud and do the Poopie Dance.

She enjoys having us sit on the toilet seat (seat, not lid–this is quite important, apparently) in solidarity when she's making an effort. I was, the other night, just so situated when I asked her whether she was all done.

"Noooo," she said, while nodding yes. So I asked her again.

She hunched over and her legs shot up into the air as she looked down to see. And then she peed all over the floor.

I had quite the jolly adventure trying to mop it all up before she could stomp in it to make splashes.

All done!

other meanings for aya: חלה

I think when Sophie's saying aya she means challah חלה not boo-boo. The other day (a Friday) we were in her class and she was making a huge deal over the aya, when clearly she wasn't hurt and the kids were going down to make their challah bread.

Sophie's newest game: סביבון (dreidel)

This morning, Sophie grabbed a water-bottled and started twisting it on the floor saying dreidel, dreidel, dreidel. She probably has a better idea what Hanukkah is than Christmas. I wonder how long before she wants to celebrate both?

stop--GO!

For a while now, Sophie has been giving us directions when we stop at stoplights.

"Go!" she'll say.

We explain that the light is red and that we'll go when the light turns green.

"Red means stop and green means go," we say. "What does red mean?"

"GO!!!!!!" she says.

When the light finally changes and we go, she shrieks in delight and narrates our passage: "Go go GO!!!!!!"

In front of the grad library

After our morning at the museum, we stopped by the grad library to pick up a book. This girl doesn't go anywhere without her binky, or "bis" as she says which I think means binky please.

Snow

Sophie knew exactly what the white stuff on the ground was when she first saw it, thanks to the book JNanners brought titled Snow. She likes to poke at it a bit, but mostly she finds the cold disagreeable. About the only time she likes to snuggle during the day is when it's cold outside, which is now just about every day.

Getting cultured

Today we went to the local museum for a tour. As Sophie and I walked around the museum, I remembered when we were walking around one of the Smithsonian Museums in DC when she couldn't really walk. She seemed overwhelmed more than anything.
Now she holds my hand as we walk around or runs from me with the mistaken belief that we are playing chase. She would notice things in paintings and say things like "dog" and "ball" No tantrums, only giggles. We even hung out for about twenty minutes playing in a nook she found to explore. She's not quite at the point where a trip to the museum is something she craves, but we're getting there.
Now a children's museum is a different thing altogether. We have a local hands-on museum that we go to frequently. It's crazy now because even if we drive by the back of it, Sophie gets all excited and starts pointing. Will the day ever come that she gets that excited to see the art museum?

Aya

Today we ran into one of Sophie's classmates. His parents speak Hebrew, so I asked them about Aya. Turns out, it means boo-boo. I'm not too surprised; however, that's not too interesting. Hopefully, she'll start picking up something more interesting/useful, like how to say, "Hi, my name is Sophie, I study biophysics. Currently, I'm working at MIT doing a postdoc, but next year, I'll start my tenure-track position at Caltech," in Hebrew.

Sophie, what are you saying?

Sophie is talking, but we don’t know what she is saying. In an earlier post her dad mentioned she’s picking up Hebrew. The problem, apparently, is that we aren’t learning it fast enough. Today on the way home from school in the car, she wanted something “aya!” This isn’t the first time this word has come up, but this time it was imperative, she really wanted “aya” whatever it is. Later, I looked it up in the dictionary and it suggested falcon or vulture. I don’t think she’s playing with vultures or falcons at school and there definitely was neither in the car. I’m going to have to ask around when I drop her off tomorrow morning.

Hebrew

So for those wondering if we were exerting ourselves teaching Sophie some German or Spanish–-no, not really.

However, daycare at the Jewish Community Center has evidently had some effect. She's started calling us ima (or eeema) and abba, which is Hebrew for mommy and daddy.

We're going to run with this and get her a "First Words Hebrew!" book.

Ima and Abba are going to study some Hebrew too!

Shalom,

Abba.

Sophie throws her first tantrum for grandma

Today Sophie dropped to the floor, on her back, flailing, crying "JJJJJaaaaayyyy, JJJJaaaayyy! The translation, JJ (that's how Sophie says JNanners, aka the hip hop grandma). The cause of this outburst was that Sophie was devastated to see JNanners forsake her by giving me the headphones she wanted. This is perhaps the only time I'll get something instead of Sophie from JNanners and I think had JNanners realized how badly Sophie wanted the headphones to begin with, I would have never gotten them. The tantrum was spectacular and it was hard not to laugh because her frustration was clear. At least JNanners knows she's part of the inner circle. Sophie won't throw a tantrum for just anyone.

more pics from Sept

One of my students who walked the Camino with me in 06 came with her mom to visit. She took some lovely pics of Sophie back in September.

so sweet

This is why I want a nice camera to take such lovely pictures. Thank you Caryn.

addendum to the below

Yes, we named our daughter Sophie.

Iphone as a tool or a toy?

I got this article off of Slate.com, a wonderfully distracting site, if you aren't familiar with it. You can find more of the article here

"The iPhone moms (and dads) walk a fine line when they hand over their phone. (In mobile-scholarship circles, this behavior is known as the "pass-back.") Typically, iPhone parents are the kind who limit TV and "screen time" and would cringe at buying a Nintendo DS for a 4-year-old. This is the wooden-toy crowd, who plan to sign up Sophie for Suzuki any day now. Yet, they—OK, me—really love their iPhones. So sleek, so intuitive—and isn't it incredible that even a 1-year-old can figure out how to use it?"

Yes, I want only wooden toys.
Yes, I want Suzuki lessons (to be fair, for both Sophie and me)
Yes, I hand over my iphone when I can't find anything else for Sophie to play with.
Yes, as parents we talk about TVs and computers in terms of "screen time"
Yes, her dad has the farm app. I have a phonics app.
Yes, I now own the Wheels on the bus app. I'll probably buy more, like Peekaboo Barn.

At the end of the article, the author is working on a master list that, among other things, provides a rating from 1-10 based on the educational value of these games, 10 being the equivalent of a portable montessori school. Does this guy read my emails? It's eerie how this guy knows me. In fact, recently I was talking to the headmaster (we've met so often we're on a first-name basis now) at our local montessori school about Sophie (she's still 2 years away) and her attending the school in the future. At the risk of getting Sophie banned for life by outing her for exposing her to a screen, I showed them my phonics app I had. They each took turns with the game and declared, we need to get this for our students. To my great relief, I knew Sophie would be in, then. If Apple could just figure out how to design a wooden Iphone, we'd all feel less guilty.

Sophie's new hat

Winter is on its way. Sophie has a new winter hat. She doesn't much like it, but she'll tolerate it.

Boo-boos

At school, the teachers regularly provide ice packs when the kids have a boo-boo. For a while, Sophie seemed to be having regular boo-boos on her cheek likely due to new incisors erupting. The teeth are now in, but the boo-boos appear to be here to stay. With very little provocation, she continues suffering from boo-boos and demands ice-packs. Yesterday, Sophie pinched her finger a bit and declared a boo-boo, then went to the fridge to collect the all-important ice pack. When I gave it to her, placed it on her cheek. I guess it helped the finger.

Bullet time

New to the pantheon of filmic technique is the slow-motion, three-dimensional track and pan that ever since The Matrix (1999) accompanies every other firing of a gun in a Hollywood film.

Besides being wicked bad-ass cool, "bullet time" as it is sometimes called, has a base in physiological fact. In moments of stress and danger (such as, for instance, when somebody fires a gun at you), individuals can experience a subjective time dilation in which the brain diverts all resources to tracking and evaluating the quickly evolving circumstances. Result: the bullet seems to be moving in slow motion.

I experienced this very effect two days ago when my darling daughter hurled a projectile at me in an arc that intersected with my nose. Slowly the plastic ring tumbled end-over-end, growing ever larger in my field of vision until--bonk!--it bounced off my face. Sophie giggled delightedly.

All of which is to say, she's started throwing things--really well. She's got good aim, and we're doing our best to encourage her not to aim at us. This is difficult due to the aforementioned delighted laugh, which is itself delightful. So hard not to giggle back at her.

The only other option, the one her mother and I opt for in stronger moments, involves removing the projectile from her possession--an operation that results in a brief, but heartfelt temper tantrum.

Still cute

She's been very very busy being cute.

Her mommy and daddy have been very very busy with dissertations, journal articles, and applications--thus the lack of updates.

She's started to throw herself down bodily and commence wailing when she doesn't get her way. Still cute somehow.

Also, her language skills are getting better, which is proving useful to her as her mother is unable to deny her much of anything when it is, after all, expressed so clearly and emphatically.

"Dis! Dis! Dis!" she'll say, which means "Juice". Like "cookie" we've no idea who taught her "juice". But somebody did. She knows what it is, knows that she wants it, and now knows how to get it. (We cut it with water, but still).

For some impressive fireworks, try giving the girl milk (or straight water!) instead of juice.

Pink Rules!

Sophie is in a serious pink stage. This morning I let her pick out her clothes, pink or brown pants. She picked pink. Pink or brown shirt. Pink, please. Brown or pink jacket Pink, pink pink. She looked oddly pink. I don't know where this comes from.

This isn't a one time event either. The other day at Ikea, when she saw the pink crib, she got very excited.

A couple days ago, we walked through the toy section to look for some alphabet magnets. Here's what she really, really wanted.

After she grew bored with the unicorn, she showed an overwelming interest in these:

really, Sophie, really?

Picture Dictionary

"Na-Na"

"Ah-Ma"

"Boo-Boo"

more foot & mouth

So, I was wrong and the school was right, she does have foot and mouth disease--again. Last week Sophie brought home a paper saying that somebody in her classroom came down with this and I smugly thought, ha, at least we've already had it and can't get it again. I was so, so wrong. At least after this round we'll be done with it. I'm sure you can't catch it three times, right?

sent home from school for growing teeth

Today Sophie was sent home from school. I was so frustrated because when I saw Sophie after her Dad picked her up early from school, she didn't look or act sick. At home while we were playing, I did notice, however, that she was doing some hard-core drooling. Sophie is not a drooler normally, so that was a sure sign that something was up in her mouth. While brushing her teeth, I found two teeth ripping through her delicate gums. Ouch. These two teeth explain a lot of things: talking about boo-boos and rubbing her cheeks lately, clinginess, moments of grumpiness. However, by state law because she was sent home with a fever today, she can't can't go back for 24 hours. Sophie only goes to school mon-wed nowadays. This means we're done with daycare for the week and it's only Tuesday.

fall leaves us behind

Feeding Mono

Scattered scenes

She astounds us with her passive vocabulary knowledge. She can point to and identify elbows and house flies, for instance.

Last week she was telling us "No! No! No! No! No!" about something. "No! No! No! No!" she said. And then: "Don't!"

Her symbolic play is quite impressive. She sits her toy animals around her musical cube as a table--sets the table with a table cloth!--and pretends to feed them. This is especially impressive as I don't know when she could have encountered a table cloth.

Just this morning, when we told her "No more bubbles, all done!", she took her stuffed mouse and signed "All done" with his paw.

We're still working on gentle. She gets excited and rambunctious and starts hitting. We tell her "No! Gentle!" and show her how to gently pat something or someone. Then she gets all excited and starts slapping again. The other day, she walloped her mother. I said "No, no, gentle!" and patted her mother. Then I drummed my hands on the floor to show her that she could be rough with things, but not people. She watched fascinated as I alternated drumming on the floor with patting gently. Then she walloped my hands as they rested on the floor.

And yesterday at Jungle Java, she ran over to the display case full of milk and apples and juices and cookies.

"Goo-gee!" she said, and pointed with great urgency at a chocolate chip cookie. "Goo-gee! Goo-gee! Goo-gee!"

"Who taught you that word?" I cried in dismay.

The Jungle Java woman behind the counter giggled.

Halloween

We didn't go out trick or treating, instead we went to several events more suited for an 18 month old. She quickly caught on to the idea that if you hold your bag out, people will drop things into it. Then she'd whisper in a shy, little voice, "tank you." It wasn't until quite a bit later she realized it was actually food in the bag when she saw me sneak one of her chocolates from her bag and pop it in my mouth.
We were going to first dress her like a lamb, but couldn't find a lamb costume that wasn't lame. Then we had a cowgirl outfit ready for her, but she refused to wear the vest or cowboy hat and the boots only stayed on for a minute or two. Resigned, we dressed her in her Tour de France jersey, which nobody seems to recognize. She's been asked if she was a Nascar driver which seems to me to be the absolute antithesis of biking! Others asked if she was a mailman because Lance Armstrong's team was the US Postal Service that year. They thought that, because of the logo, she was delivering mail or something. What? Really? Although it was our third choice of outfits, it was still quite clever. I'm sure the people in Boulder, Colorado would have understood and indeed been charmed. Any French person would too, surely. So while I appreciate the fact that our little town is highly educated and most people have an MA, MD, JD or PhD, these people need to get some culture. Nascar? I mean, come on!

Hiding and Seeking

We've got some red velvet curtains we hung in front of our closet doors long before Sophie was born. She's taken to hiding behind them, now and then. Luckily she doesn't pull (too hard)--she just wants to hide.

Yesterday, I was gathering toys, pouring milk, wiping the floor (Sophie's usual postprandial halo of food around her highchair), making sure Mono and Pato were at their posts in her crib, and cuing up her song--all in preparation for bedtime.

I wasn't watching her. At least not with any great degree of concentration. She would pitter-patter-pitter-patter-whoosh! run past me as I swept up some crumbs; she would pitter-patter-pitter-patter-whoosh past me again as she rushed back to her room. I could hear her giggling and chattering all the way.

Come bath time, I heard her laughing softly to herself in the bathroom. I went in--and no Sophie to be seen. Where was she?

Where's Sophie? This last having been said out loud, the bathrobe hanging on the hook on the back of the door began shaking with uncontrollable mirth. And giggling louder.

She whipped aside the bathrobe for a triumphant reveal and grinned at me with a fair helping of smug.

I laughed out loud. So we did it again and again and again.

a day with JJ, aka JNanners, aka The Nanners, aka The hip-hop grandma

Sophie's spending the last few days of fall with JNanners. She's at the park playing in the sandbox. These last couple weeks, she's started looking more and more like her dad. Her blue eyes are slowing turning hazel. It seems odd to think of her as having dark-haired, but then again she was born that way. I have a hard time of thinking of her as younger or of being older, she always seems just right at the age she is now.

update

-Sophie stayed home with JNanners for the weekend while the parents escaped for a weekend in Toronto. When we returned, she didn't even seem to notice that we had left. Guess she had a good time.
-She's starting to add two words together. It's clear that she's on the verge of stringing longer sentences together. It's also clear that she has a lot to say.
-She's getting the idea of kicking a ball. She likes to kick, run, throw.
-Lastly, she's turned into a wonderful sleeper. At 8.00 she goes into the crib without a peep. At around 7.00am-8:00 she wakes up excited to start the day. If she wakes up in the middle of the night or early in the morning, we pop her pacifier back in and she'll turn over and go back to sleep. How lovely!

fall has arrived

The weather is getting crummy and only allows for a few hours of outdoor play each day. Got to make the most of them.

baby in the stroller

Babies are really important now.

Mah Bay-bee!

A sentence! Or not? A fragment, perhaps. But certainly evocative, communicative even. Two words. Two. Not one.

So language learning proceeds apace. And we are all given to understand that this is Sophie's baby--not Mommy's, not Daddy's. She looked askance when I suggested that Sophie was Daddy's baby. A bit too meta, no doubt.

(She'll also give us an occasional unsolicited "tank u". Which technically is a sentence, no doubt. But that's a result of phrasal chunking, whereas the "Mah Bay-bee" was generative and thus more impressive).

In other news, she came up to us unbidden while she was playing, and *smack* *smack* gave us each a big sloppy kiss.

So that's it, I'm tapped--all out of ponies.

gratitude and compassion

Today (or was it last night?) we got another unsolicited “thank you” from Sophie when her dad brought her some food. Yesterday, she gave up her doll to a girl who was sad and tearful because she didn’t have one. This isn’t the first time she’s displayed such grace. At school, one of the boys was really upset that his mom was leaving. Sophie walked over to his cubby, got his favorite stuffed animal and brought it to him. I find these moments quite uncanny because this comes from a little girl whose working vocabulary is probably around 100 words and she can’t really even say her own name, but she can demonstrate gratitude and show compassion.

NO! No! No! No! No! No-oh-oh-oh-h!!!!

no.

At the library in the rain

After storytime, Sophie wanted to play in the rain. Actually, she wanted to sit on the wet ground. She was thrilled when I acquiesced.

Fall has arrived

small, but shiny

Sophie is such an easy child, so good natured and ultimately accommodating--even if she does think the library is for shrieking and racing around the aisles--that I feel guilty making any sort of noise about when things get trying.

Nonetheless, I feel I deserve just one very small medal for successfully washing her hair (or, okay, rinsing it with sudsy water and a perfunctory scrub with a washcloth) without her mother here to help me.

Sophie survived. But I fear she and Mr. Hairdryer are not friends.

Sunday Morning

It's 9:40am and Sophie is still sleeping. This is nothing short of a miracle. Consequently, others in the house have been able to sleep. I had a languorous sleep until 8:30am, which clocks me in for just under a 9 1/2 hour of almost continuous sleep--amazing! Mike's still asleep, he went to bed later and was up at around 5.00am when Sophie thought maybe it was time to get up. Luckily Mike managed to convince her that it still a bit early. I think that somehow reset her sleep clock. An unfamiliar but welcome calmness permeates the house this morning. A hot coffee would make this perfect, but I am afraid any little sound will wake her.

Sophie's killer app

She understands an astonishing amount now. We'll suggest she take a seat at the foot of the bed to eat her piece of apple. She looks at us earnestly for a moment, and then plops down. It's almost like she understands people-talk.

Along with her growing awareness that she's a person in a world filled with other people comes a certain reticence when dealing with strange adults. And a fierce determination to defend her property rights when dealing with other toddlers.

Today we rolled up to My Urban Toddler. Her face changed from agonized, strapped-into-a-seat-for-God's-sake boredom to giddy joy when she realized where we were. Once in, her mother plopped her into the play area and she was off on a mission to find and take possession of the Baby Doll.

She advertised her intentions by chattering "Bay-bee! Bay-bee!" as she prowled the room looking into boxes and under chairs.

Once she'd found her Bay-bee and had installed her in her proper place (a shopping cart filled with plastic cans, two plastic strawberries, an unappetizing looking plastic fish who was loosing his coloring, and 27 dollars in play money), Sophie began pushing her about the room, ever vigilant against possible encroachment by other toddlers.

The three little boys who were sharing the play space displayed no interest in Bay-bee and thus posed no real threat. Sophie was taking no chances. Whenever they came near, she hunched her body protectively over the shopping cart while muttering "bay-bee. bay-bee" sotto voce.

Her realization that there are other people in the world has been accompanied by an annoyingly strident avarice.

There are moments of sweetness, however. Such as when she brings her little friends in daycare their stuffed animals when they appear to be having a rough time of it.

She's also fairly good at trotting out the cute when we go out in public. Her shyness means it takes a little while to get her to say Hello, but she's always ready to say Bye-Bye.

And then there's her killer app: her willingness to blow kisses on command.

When she does this, it is always a big hit. An 18-month-old blowing kisses? Please! An initial small-child solemnity makes was for a big silly grin and--Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!--her interlocutors--cashiers, coworkers, kindly strangers on the street--all uniformly melt.

Yes she's still doing interesting things

And keeping us busy, busy, on our toes.

She's of an age where attention must be paid to her at all times or

AHHHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

UP! UP! UP! UP! UP! UP! AHHHHHHHHHH!

MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE-AH MINE-AH MINE-AH MINE-AH MINE!

(Small child collapses into inconsolable heap. Heartbroken, abandoned, totally hopeless weeping follows).

AHHHH! HAHHHHHH-HA! HA! Ha. Huh. Huh. Huh. Huh huh.

(Deep shuddery breaths--we've been picked up. All is not lost.)

Mahmeh! Dahdee! (in delighted tones--we're now happy again, as we've been given a small token of love. A piece of tin foil, say. Or perhaps that toilet paper we've had our eyes on).

Wash--rinse--repeat until bed time at 8:00 p.m.

Elmo

She thinks he lives in our computers.

I guess he does, kind of (Youtube).

In the driver's seat

It's getting harder to take Sophie places.

We now understand what people mean when they say that newborns are more portable than 18-month-olds.

One reason it is harder to take Sophie places, is that immediately upon seeing the car, she wants to get the door open so that she can climb into the driver's seat and play with the windshield wipers, mirrors, emergency brake, horn (honk!), cup holders and handles that do there reside.

Maybe it's the fact that her car seat is positioned in the center of the rear seat, where she can watch us drive and co-drive.

Another reason it is hard to take her places is that she wants to pull everything down from the shelves. The other day, at My Urban Toddler (where pulling things from shelves is not such an issue), she walked along a low shelf literally sweeping everything to the floor. She even stopped to make sure she had gotten all the pieces of the puzzle out before proceeding on. Like she was some miniature mafioso making a point about protection money. "Next time you pay up, see? Or I let my baby loose in your fine establishment with a stick. So's she can reach the high up breaky things, see? You got a lotta nice breaky things here. It'd be a shame to get them, you know, broke."

A day at the petting zoo/cider mill

Today we had an intense morning at a local cider mill with a petting zoo. We started out waving hi to ducks, then brushing the goats and donkey. We also spent a lot of time in their jumpy castle complete with a pool of balls and slide. She cried when we had to leave and she couldn't jump any more.

cute prison

Jailed for being too adorable. ;-)

Sophie hearts Bebe

sophie has a new bebe

It was love at first sight. In the toy store, she ran up and grabbed the perfect doll that met everybody's needs. Bebe is small and not made of too much plastic. She's not too freaky looking, no umbilical cords or weird hair, although her eyes are a bit off. Bebe came with a binky. Recently, she´s really taken a liking to her binky, and now that she has a doll with one, it is likely that Sophie will not give up hers until she´s 15. Sophie hasn't let Bebe out of her sight all day. I think Bebe is going to be a regular feature in her life for a while. This sweet picture is at the park with JNanners, the hip-hop grandma. Sophie's snacking on yogurt while Bebe watches.

Today a friend and her mom came to visit. All of us went to the park to take pics of Sophie. At first, Sophie was feeling a bit shy, but by the end, she had totally warmed up and blew them kisses when they left to go home.

Be-be for Sophie

Be-be has multiple meanings for Sophie. First, it can mean belly button. Usually she’s pulled up her shirt and is pointing to her belly when be-be means belly button. The other meaning is binky (pacifier), as in go get my binky. You know she means binky because she’s usually hooting as well and pointing to the binky that has fallen out of her crib. Be-be can also mean doll, like a baby. She likes to hug dolls, which is cute but can sometimes present a problem if the be-be isn’t hers and the other girl doesn’t want to give it up. Then she follows up with a "mine." No, Sophie, it's not yours

Sophie invents her own sign

Lately Sophie’s mastered the concept of open, but can’t quite say it. When she wants something open, she’ll makes a sound that resembles “up” (which can also mean, lift me up or help me). But what is more curious is that she’s invented a sign for it as well. I thought maybe she learned how to sign “open” at school, but when I looked up the ASL sign for “open”, what she does looks nothing like it. Arguably, her sign looks a lot like “more,” but she puts more emphasis on pulling the hands apart. The only problem, is that she goes around wanting everything open.

Wouldn't hurt a fly

So last weekend, we were in a little coffee shop outside of town.

Sophie was sitting in the window sill, which was wide enough to be a window seat for her. It was a great place for her: kept her out of mischief, but she could still entertain herself by looking out the window.

Then a fly came buzzing by, and Sophie noticed it. This might have been the first time she looked really closely at a fly, and she did not like what she saw. So she hooted, jumped into her mother's lap, and refused to have anything more to do with the window seat.

So yeah, she's definitely turned skittish lately.

Conflicted about Dogs

The other day we were at the playground.

There was a dog tied up to a bench. It was a very nice dog. It hardly even whimpered when a couple of children were using it to play tug of war with while arguing over who got to play with the dog.

Sophie was fascinated. Transfixed. And very very skittish.

The first thing she did was bend down and pick up some wood chips to offer it. 'Cause, you know how dogs like to eat wood chips.

I can only think she's remembering the petting zoo, and various petting-zoo-like experiences. (Five months ago she was fearless at these things. Now she's terrified.)

So the dog wasn't interested in wood chips. Possibly she was distracted by the small children who kept getting tangled in her leash.

Sophie watched carefully from afar.

When, during a quiet moment, the dog turned toward us, Sophie spun around to my legs, held her arms up, and tried to jump into my lap (while whispering hoarsely "Bup! Bup!").

Almost, almost, she pet it. But she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

playing nicely with others

Not a very captivating picture, but it's sweet because she's playing so nicely with her new, 5-year old friend. He did a great job playing with a younger toddler, she did a great job of playing with him. No tears, no unnecessary poking or arguing over toys. We all had fun.

what composure

What strikes me about this pic is how unwobbly or unflailing she is.

Sophie in action

Sophie's first bouncy castle

With this event, I officially declare Sophie no longer a baby and well on her way into toddlerhood.

Sophie in the dark

Last night I heard her coughing in her sleep.

And then she was awake, crying fitfully.

I stood at her door, waiting to see if I should go in or not. When she cried again, I went into her room and bent over her crib to rub her back and see what I could do for her. Vaguely, through the dark of her room, I could see that she was reaching out from the bars of her crib.

I bent down and fumbled around until I found the binky that had fallen out. As I did so, Sophie murmured "Uh oh! Uh oh! Uh oh!"

Then she snatched the binky from my hand, rolled over and went back to sleep.

A couple of nights ago I had similar cause to check on her in the night. I fumbled around in the dark, trying to set things right. I could just barely see her little body as a pale blob lying in her crib. I petted her, straightened her out and waited for her to calm and fall asleep.

Finally I got up and started sneaking to the door. I opened it and looked back at her. Sophie was lying there staring up at me solemnly.

"Good night, Goose," I said, "Sleep tight."

"Bye bye," she said, "Bye bye. Bye bye."

Watching fall arrive

Sophie and I went down to the river for a picnic. The weather was perfect and the ducks were out in full force.

waving hi to the ducks

Watermelon

A babbling brook

She enjoys babbling. "Myna myna myna myna" is a favorite, as is "bitte bitte bitt". But there are some actual words in there too. A surprising number, actually, when we started counting.

Here is her top ten:

--up!

[Started as "bup", now very well formed; means 'up', 'open', 'take me over to that thing and open it', and 'do the thing I want now'.]

--no

[She gets good vibrato--a plaintive wail at times. At others, a curt dismissal.]

--mo'

[more. Mo' milk, mo' problems, Sophie--usually for us when she pours it on herself.]

--Bye bye!

[She's got a singsong accompanied with a lovely little wave for this. She's still working on 'hi' (and 'yes' for that matter).]

--dis

[She'd like a bit of dis and a bit of dat. She can be quite insistent when her mommy and I are being obtuse: "Dis! Dis! DIS!"]

--Uh oh!

[For when she drops things and wants us to pick them up. Often this 'uh oh!' will be my clue that she's dropped a stuffed animal and that we'll now have to backtrack a block and a half to retrieve it. If I pick it up and don't give it to her (after say, three iterations of the dropping game), she'll tell me "Uh oh! Uh oh! Uh oh! Uh oh! Uh oh! Uh oh!" I should really give it back.]

--momo

[Actually 'mono'/'monkey']

--mama

[I get to hear this when I go in to pick her up in the morning. "Mama! Mama! Mama! No! Mama! No!" (combined with her trying to push me away as I'm still holding her). Does "No!--Mama!" count as a word-combination/sentence then?]

--Baa

[The sound a sheep makes, and also, now the name of her stuffed sheep. We'll pick it up and ask "What's this Sophie?" and she'll get crazy excited, grin like a little maniac, and shout "Baa! Baa! Baa!" as she rushes over to rip Baa from our hands.]

--Shoos

[shoes. These are vastly, mysteriously important to Sophie. She'll try them on, try to try them on, bring them over to us to try on, try to fit them on our feet, slip into our shoes and try to walk around, and generally babble about how cool shoos are.]

That was here top ten. Here are her also rans. I'll put me first, even though I'm pretty sure she talks more about belly buttons, teeth, bubbles, and Elmo.

Dada, beh-beh [belly button], nohse [nose], aise [eyes], teese [teeth], ehmoh [elbow (or possibly, sadly, Elmo)], buhboh [bubble ballon], meye meye meye [me mine--chanted rapidly and insistently], bah [ball], boo-boo-ree [blueberry], nana [banana], gog [dog], uck [both duck and truck], oo [spoon; also 'oon' and 'poon'], ooooo! [sound a cow makes]

Here are some signs (non-verbal):

feed me, water, all done, milk, elephant, monkey.

fun with felt-tip pens

Crayons are kind of sucky, they don't work well unless you use a lot of pressure. But felt-tip pens, they work wonderfully! The hard part, as I see it, isn't the ink all over the small child (that washes out with a bit of scrubbing), but rather keeping her from the pens when we aren't there to supervise. I fear that someday I'm going to walk into her room and find a long, purple scribble on her pure-white walls. I just hope she can wait until its our house and not a rental.

back to school

Sophie started school yesterday, sort of. She was already going to daycare over the summer, so the only thing that really changed are some new kids, mostly younger infants in her room--boring. She misses the older kids and sometimes wanders down to the classroom where the older kids now are. Last night, on the drive home, she started repeating their names after I would say them.

She’s in a weird stage; sometimes she’s a social butterfly and others, a bashful monkey. When she’s in her element, like at school, she’ll greet everybody who comes in and leaves the classroom. As I mentioned, she loves to play with the other kids and she shares toys remarkably well. But if somebody new approaches her, especially when we aren’t in a familiar place, she wants to be picked up and burry her head into the picker-upper’s chest.

Once we drop her off, she immediately takes off to go play or run around. When we pick her up, after an initial hug, she’s ready to return to whatever she was doing before we arrived. And before we leave the building, we have to stop in the monkey room, a designated room designed like an outdoor playground. But who can blame her, when we were younger, didn’t we all want to play in a monkey room?

Besides the fact that she seems to thrive at school, another reason I love it is because they regularly do arts & crafts, which usually involves getting very messy. It’s clear she thoroughly enjoys this, but I would never want to do it in my tiny house. In the picture I think they are playing with colored whipped cream or maybe shaving cream. Another favorite medium is chocolate pudding, which offers a slightly heavier and richer texture. When I asked Sophie which she preferred she said whipped cream because chocolate pudding doesn’t provide the definition or hold its form like whipped cream does.

A video only family would find interesting

Here is Sophie getting her new crib and repeatedly showing off her trick of offer and rescind. It's clear that Sophie appreciates the nice, clean lines of her new bed.

A day without a nap makes everybody grumpy

I hope this is an anomaly. Sophie decided to forgo her nap today. It wasn’t pretty. She cried for about 20 minutes when we put her down to nap, then I went in and tried to convince her to take a nap on the futon with me for about 30 minutes. After giving up thinking she might just go to sleep on her own without me distracting her, I put her back into her crib, where she lasted about 20 more minutes v. unhappy. Mike tried to go calm her and convince her a nap would be nice to no avail. I did what I’ve never had to do before, I played the drive card. I’ve definitely let her fall asleep while we are driving, but I’ve never taken her out of the crib and into the car for the sole intention getting her to sleep. I thought surely a car ride would put her to sleep given that she now must be exhausted—her parents were--she'd been up since 6:30 and spent the entire morning running and playing hard. Sophie and I made it out to Chelsea, 20 miles away, wide awake on the way out and very fussy on the way back. At that point I gave up on the idea of getting her to sleep, which was probably best for all of us. I was manic and exhausted; she was frustrated and sick of me shoving the pacifier in her face. We went to the library where her overpowering friendliness was too much for shy Korean children. She was perfectly happy. She was the most cheerful kid there, I was the most exhausted parent. Then we headed home to play a bit before dinner. You would never know she didn’t take her regularly scheduled, two-hour nap. So it seems that she functions fine without a nap, but we don’t.

Stone Cold

I miss the good old days, when she could say "dada" but hadn't quite mastered "mama".

Now she not only can say "Mama", but also "No"--as in "Noooo! Mama! Mama!" when I have the temerity to pick her up when she wants her mother. Which is usually.

Sometimes she'll take to pushing me away, as if I didn't quite understand. "No! No! No! Mama!"

Mama's a rock star. Daddy rates somewhere just above a disposable diaper. You know, useful, but nothing to get too excited about.

Other times she's all kisses and giggles and hugs. But she may just be trying to make sure her options on ponies are safe, I'm not sure.

Cavitation

Good hygiene is a priority for Sophie. This is due largely to the fact that she’s fascinated with cavitation, you know, the formation of bubbles. She loves bubbles. She’ll wash her hands at any given opportunity because it gives her the chance to use the soap to work up a lathery hand full of bubbles. Trying to satiate her latest interest, I decided to give her a bubble bath for the first time last night. It took bathing to a whole new level. She enjoyed every minute of it running her hands through the bubbles and splashing around. This morning, she dragged out her baby shampoo from the bathroom into the living room and asked for bubbles, or as she says it, "bubble." How quickly she learns. Tonight, when we took her out of her cold bathwater, she pitched a fit wanting to stay longer in the bubbles. Did I interrupt an experiment? We just had a cavitation conference here at the University. Had I realized how intense Sophie’s interest was, I would have taken her to hear a conference paper or two as long as it didn't interfere with her nap time. Maybe next year. Perhaps we have a future fluid engineer on our hands.

The Hokey Pokey

Sophie's making great strides, babbling more and more, stacking things, expressing opinions (point and vocalize), speaking more clearly (shoose, noo, up, teese*), and telling jokes (mostly variations of things on people's heads--and farts).

We've expanded our repertoire of songs a bit. She hasn't really cottoned to "London Bridge is Falling Down," but when we do the Hokey Pokey, she stares at up gap-jawed in befuddled delight and then signs for "more". Yesterday, her Mama, her Daddy, and her JNanners performed for her pleasure during her bath, which led to giggles all around.

She's growing and changing daily, getting brighter, and cleverer, and becoming more and more aware. Today we drove home because we thought we'd forgotten something, realized that we had it in the trunk, and continued on to the store. Sophie's expression when we pulled into the driveway only to pull out again was priceless.

We are very much enjoying her sense of humor and her capacity for joy. What a delight to have a child who rushes at you for a hug, who giggles in delight and claps her hands when you walk in the door. We need a good word for what happens in the hour or two before dinner, bath, and the bedtime ritual, when we all roll around in a happy tangle in her room--chasing, tickling, giggling, and laughing. It is my happiest time.

I'm going to call it the Hokey Pokey: that's what it's all about.

[*shoes, no, up, teeth--it's more clear to us, anyway]

Along with words come opinions

Sophie has a working vocabulary of about 8 words, most of which are darling like “bu-bu-re” for blueberry or “Elmo” for elbow. She has no real need for the word elbow, I just love to make her say it because it’s so cute when she calls her elbows “Elmos.” With this burgeoning vocabulary, she also has mastered the concept of no, which she says with a long, drawn out “o,” like “nooooo.” She’s not shy to share with you her opinions if she doesn’t like or want something. Just a few weeks ago, she was such a positive child. Not so much now.

With her last illness, we pulled out the bottles again because the sippy cups seemed to hurt her mouth too much, but we've since put the bottles away (again). This evening, she signed milk, so I went to get her a sippy cup of milk. She signed milk again with even more intensity. It’s wasn’t just milk she wanted, it was milk in a bottle. It was clear in her sign that she was practically screaming it. Inflection in sign language, how cool? Before I even gave her the cup, she hit the sippy cup in my hand and was really mad. She’s done this several times now and its hysterical, but you can’t laugh because she’s clearly upset. I think if she had the dexterity, she’d gather all the sippy cups together, put a match to them, and melt them down to a pile of plastic goo. Then, she’d rustle around in the cupboards until she found all her hidden bottles and sneak them off into her room. Hopefully, by the time she can do that, she’ll have forgotten she even liked bottles.

Doing much Better

But she's had a couple of moments of regression during her sickness.

1) We need to wean her off bottles again. We reintroduced them because we were worried that she wasn't drinking anything and her poop, when it came, was hard and pellet-like: it looked like balls of oats--like she was a rabbit or horse (Hoof and Mouth!!) or something. Well the poo is soft and squishy again, and Ms. Sophie has decided that bottles are GREAT. She wants nothing but bottles from now on, and her mother and I can just go to hell if we don't like it. Did you hear me? Go to He-eahrghghghg-haurwoooo-harhgh (accompany with visual of small child collapsing in utter distraught abandonment--as if all her little bones had been magjicked out of her body at once).

Which brings me to:

2) The whining. Oh, the mommy and the daddy were quite attentive to the poor little sprout with the ouchy sores in her mouth. Of course she's whimpering when she can't eat strawberries without getting that open sore on her tongue and cheek and lip all acidy ouchy. But it seems Sophie has not made the connection "my monkeys love me very much and will look after me when I am ill", but rather "hey, if I whimper and whine, I get what I want." Well you know what Sophie? Mommy and Daddy do love you very much, and will look after you when you're ill. But sores heal, and now you're just playing us.

Her mother blames this on me and my genes. To which I say: fair enough. I've always been a recreational whiner, and I must admit that the sounds emitting in a nasally waver from my small darling daughter sound disturbingly familiar.

She slept through the night last night. To which I say, Hallelujah!

I woke up at 7:30 this morning, and couldn't figure out why it was light out.

Hoof and Mouth Disease

Sophie has it.

Okay, hand and mouth and foot disease, but if she had hoofs, those would be diseased too.

She's getting better.

Not hoof and mouth disease

This is what a normally happy girl looks like with hand, foot, and mouth disease. Everything I read about Sophie's latest malady, hand, foot and mouth disease, insists that this is *not* hoof and mouth disease. I don't really care if it is or not, I just know that none of us likes it. She's got a very sore mouth so she doesn't want to eat, drink or brush her teeth. And last night, she really didn't want to sleep. What's more, she's very, very irritable, breaking down and crying inconsolably. Apparently it lasts about a week and I think her symptoms started on Sunday. We can only hope that by next Sunday this will all be cleared up.

One thing that has helped keep her occupied is a hand-me-down trike. As you can see in the picture, it has a push bar to help guide/steer her. About half the time she likes to sit and be pushed, the other half, she gets off and pushes it herself. Poor thing can't quite reach the peddles enough to peddle herself and she isn't quite tall enough to push it on her own either. Add that to her list of frustrations. Like the Like-a-Bike, it's also made in Germany. It says the age range is 12 months and up, but at 17 she just barely is big enough. They must have some very big 12 month old German babies.

Sophie's first wedding

We went to an amazing wedding at a friend's house on the lake. A beautiful setting for two lovely people to get married. Sophie wasn't too into the whole sitting still bit. Shortly after this pic was taken, she and her dad went over to play on the swing. She didn't even make it to the beginning of the ceremony before she was getting antsy. At least we had a game plan before we arrived. Once the ceremony was over and she could roam a bit more, she was more cheerful, but by 6.30 she had had enough. We ended up leaving before the dinner was served (no pig roast for us :-().

soooo excited to be in a helicopter

Sophie squealed in delight when she got into this helicopter ride. Her joy was infectious. She didn't even care that the knobs were broken off or that it didn't go anywhere or do anything.

Sophie reads

These days when Sophie reads about things in her books, she’ll find the same object in the room and point to it or she indicates what one would do with said object. For example, she saw a picture of a table and then pointed to our desk/table. Then she pointed to the chair in the room after seeing a picture of a chair in the book. She’s also started indicating what to do with the objects she sees in books. For example, when she sees a picture of a bib, she’ll point to her neck. She’ll point to her feet when she sees shoes. And before we even ask, “What does a cow say?”, she’ll moo like a cow when she sees a picture of one.

Sophie's new BFW (Best Friends for the Week)

At school Sophie has started spending more time with another little girl who just turned two. I quite like the girl, she’s fun, sweet and smart--all lovely qualities for a friend. The first time I noticed her was a couple of months ago when I took Sophie to school. The girl called out Sophie’s name when Sophie walked in the classroom. Since the kids say so few words, the fact that they know, much less say another child’s name seems pretty meaningful. This morning when Sophie came into the room and saw her friend, she blurted out the girl’s name. Afterward, Sophie walked over to her, they smiled at one another, then Sophie proceeded to snatch the baby her friend was holding. After we found babies for everybody, including a plastic one that appears to have the umbilical cord still attached (weird!), peace was restored and a full day of play began.

At the park

Sent home for smelly shoes

Yesterday when we went to pick up Sophie from daycare, she was shoeless. Since she spent much of her first year that way, I wasn’t too surprised. Then her caretaker told us she didn’t want to put her Keen sandals on her feet because they, the shoes, were too stinky. I figured maybe she’d stepped in something. No, they were smelly from everyday, general use. Granted, she’s worn these shoes every day for the last two months or so. But, I thought part of Keen’s dealio was that they weren’t supposed to smell--isn't that why they cost so much? How gross (and embarrassing) is that to think about: here are your daughter’s shoes, they stink so badly that I won’t even put them on her feet. I meekly promised to wash them by the next day. But the next day came way, way too quickly and the shoes never made it into the washing machine. I did what I would imagine Diane Keaton would do in a bad movie about having too many kids and not enough time: I doused them with Fabreeze and stuck them on her feet—cue the lame laugh track. Unlike Diane Keaton, however, I didn’t have a look of exasperation on my face, I was way more stoic.

This situation also presents a conundrum. On the one hand, I wanted to know just how much stink is too stinky—I don’t want to have to repeat this incident again. On the other hand, I didn’t want to smell the shoes. I trusted the caretaker and her good judgment. Now that I think about it, you should never really second-guess anybody when they say something stinks. Nonetheless, I took a sniff. Stinky? Well, yes a bit. But clearly, the caregiver has never played soccer because if these were soccer shoes, I’d tell you they were just getting broken in.

berm runner

Sophie enjoyed the petting zoo in Toronto, but not because she wanted to pet any of the animals particularly. She just liked running up and down the berm.

Not quite ready for a bike

Yesterday night we brought home a like-a-bike knockoff. These things are all over Germany and they use them instead of bikes with training wheels. Kids move seamlessly from these to regular bikes much younger than they do in the US. After watching kids ride around on them, it’s clear to see why (check out the video). One thing we particularly liked about these bikes was that we’d see kids putting around on them on the sidewalks of Berlin keeping up with their parents as they walked—no strollers needed and the kids get a great workout.

This morning Sophie, who points to bikes in her books and loves to sit on mine, finally got her own. I didn’t quiet expect her to be booking down the streets anytime soon, but I did at least think she’d be scooting along the sidewalks. I seriously miscalculated, by about three inches. After the initial excitement passed when she found it in the living room, she tried to get on. When she sat on the bike her feet dangled in midair nowhere close to the ground. She seemed happy enough to just let me push her around the house and when I took her off, she tried to push the bike herself. So we’ll put the bike away for a few more months. I’m afraid that she probably won’t be on it until next spring. By the time her legs reach the ground, we’ll be in the middle of winter.

Bottles the Sequel: Return of the Bottle

But okay, just for nap time.

She needs her nap. Daddy needs her nap too.

bye-bye bottles

Today I hid all of the bottles. No more. At her last checkup I was told to get rid of them. We'd been using them only for sleep time because sometimes she'd insist that she wants a bottle and not a sippy cup and that's not a moment when you want a meltdown, you just want a sleeping baby. But a few nights I gave her a sippy cup instead and she didn't even seem to notice. I think we've been slow to stop using them not just because of Sophie, but because it's easy to fill them up and give them to her. Like so many things with young children, it's easy to take the path of least resistance. She signs milk, we are happy that she can express herself and gladly fill up a bottle full of milk for her. But at the same time, I'm sick of cleaning bottles since we don't have a dishwasher. For about six to eight months we were cleaning five bottles a day by hand. Recently, we're down to one or two, but it still seems like there are always bottles that need to be washed. For whatever reason, sippy cups seem so bother me less--probably because they take 1/5 of the time to wash. So, we'll see if we are all strong enough to move on and leave the bottles behind. Stay tuned.

Sophie knows her possessive adjectives and demonstrative pronouns

One of the interesting things about language is that we know when to use certain grammar rules even when we don't realize it. For example, unbeknownst to Sophie, she has mastered possessive adjective. She easily understands my, your, his, her, etc. We can go through the whole series of "Where's your nose?" "Where's my nose?" with speed and grace with her accurately pointing to her nose then my nose. Now she seems to be working through demonstrative pronouns. The other night she was pointing at every object in the book asking "This? This? This?" Or she'll point to something in her crib and say, "That!" when she wants what ever is in her crib.

Pointing at Pictures

Sophie's latest trick is pointing at pictures and sometimes identifying them.

She'll point enthusiastically to Clifford the big/little red dog (we think she thinks he's Elmo). She points to monkeys and makes the monkey sign and says "ooo, ooo!". And every time she comes across a toothbrushing pictures she puts her fingers up to her mouth in imitation.

So all that reading (and brushing of teeth) seems to have paid dividends.

She'll also point at pictures in response to our prompts. "Where's the flower?" we'll ask, and after a moment's hesitation she'll point to the squirrel and look at us hopefully. "Ooooh!" we'll say, "Not quite. But you found the squirrel--good job!"

I could wish for such a cheerful spirit of open exploration and a willingness to make mistakes in my students. As opposed to Sophie, they seem sometimes paralyzed by the thought of getting something wrong. So far "C'mon guys, my baby can do this!" has not proven itself the way to motivate them to experiment and take risks.

Sophie draws

Sophie loves to draw on paper, for about two minutes. Then, she wants to draw on the table, floor, or anywhere but the paper. Then I take away the lovely crayons and we move on to the next activity.

Sophie speaks, signs, counts and sorts.

Sophie's starting to say more and more words each week. She now says nose, shoes and banana. She can now point to pictures in the book and sign the animal--duck, monkey, elephant. She seems to understand just about anything. I ask her a lot of yes/no questions and she often nods her head yes when she answers, even when sometimes she possibly hasn't thought through the whole question. But I like this positive feedback, so I ask her questions that sometimes should just be statements. Last night I asked her if she wanted to go to bed, because for the last three nights she'd said yes. Last night she said no. I didn't expect that and no wasn't really an option. I read her a couple of more books and then took her to bed, no questions asked, which seemed to work, luckily.

She's also taken to counting and sorting. Yesterday morning she took out three cereal boxes and repeatedly counted them or at least wagged her finger at them as if she were counting. Then she emptied out our teabox and kindly separated the teabags: those with clear wrappers went in the library, those with colored wrappers, in the kitchen. One the one hand, it's very exciting to see her count and sort, on the other hand, I fear there will be more to clean up.

Sophie reaches her newest height :-(

Mike mentions how unchildproof our house is in the next blog entry you will read, he's right. We have all the basics down: locks on cupboards, electric sockets covered, etc. The problem is that Sophie's favorite places to be are those where she will find the most trouble, especially the library where all of our books and computers are. This morning, I left her there reading Goodnight Moon, walked into the living room to get my wallet, then heard a thud. I just thought it was the book hitting the ground. I was wrong. It was my newish laptop. Mike walked in and collected it off the floor. Apparently my coping mechanism is to just not think about the possibly broken computer until I need to use it again. Luckily, all is well. It didn't fall far--I've dropped previous laptops from higher up--and the landing was pretty soft on the carpet--I dropped another one on the cement once. One of my laptops--the one that was dropped on the cement--was sold to a friend who then days later dropped it down a flight of stairs at the Bibliothèque nationale. She still uses it years later. So hurray for Apple for making such nice durable computers; boo for me for leaving the computer out where Sophie can get it.