sleep is for suckers

Sophie, remember when you used to sleep all night? Where have those days gone? Last night, we went to bed at midnight only to be woken up at two something or three. Sophie's dad went to get her back to sleep. At four she woke up again. When I went in she was standing up in her crib ready to get up for the day. There was no way I was going for that. I tried sitting down with her in the chair, but she was too cold. She made me cover my hand over her one foot that didn't have a sock on it. Then we moved to the futon. There she ordered me to cover her up with her small blanket, but not the large one. I was absolutely not to touch her, but instead to cover her with a pair of my pants over the small blanket. It took me a bit to figure that one out because she still isn't articulate and even when she said what she wanted, I really didn't believe her. Once the small blanket and pants were in place, then she wanted milk, pato and a binky. Of course, once she started drinking the milk, the blanket and pants fell off. By then it was almost five in the morning and she was still restless. She decided she wanted to sleep where I was sleeping and I was to sleep where she was. We changed sides. Somewhere around six in the morning, she finally found a comfortable position, laying across the two pillows with her feet in my neck leaving me to use her stuffed monkey as a pillow. As the sun came up, she fell back asleep. I woke up for work this morning with a stiff neck, late for work, but happy that we managed to get back to sleep.

More spinach, please

Sophie's food choices at times surprise me. In fact, sometimes I have to hold back my own aversion to things like mushrooms because she'll eat them. Today for lunch she chose tofu and spinach to eat. She couldn't get enough spinach. More, more, more, until we ran out.

Then she started eating udon noodles, which were mostly for fun rather than eating. She enjoyed slurping them up half way and then letting them dangle from her mouth while looking cute. It was very hard not to laugh.

Sophie's food choices are a lot like those of two kids that I regularly see at the park. Their mom feeds them dry seaweed for a snack and the kids love it. Every time I see her feeding them, she just sort of rolls her eyes in disbelief and says she'll keep it up until they catch on.

lovely, cuddly morning

This morning, Sophie slept in until 8.30am. Unfortunately, this is unusually late for her but just about right for her dad and I. However, after today, I'm led to believe that it just might be the right time for Sophie too. She got dressed quiet happily, she got diapers on without much fuss and gave me a sweet hug goodbye. She was in a better mood than she's normally during the morning and so were we.

enough sophies in the world

Today, we ran into a Sophia at the park and a Sophie somewhere else today. This evening I found out that an acquaintance of mine has a son whose daughter is named....can you guess?....Yes, Sophie. And that was just today. Sophie is the new Jennifer. Tegel...I've never run into a Tegel.

bitey girl gets sent home for sore mouth

About an hour after she got dropped off at school, I got a call to come pick Sophie up. She was looking a bit worn out. I think her poor mouth hurts all over. We went to play and as long as we were doing things, that seemed to keep her mind off her mouth. I'm going to try to take a look tonight to see if there are any more new teeth. I'm hoping to see a new crop of three white pearlies.

Bitey girls keeps on biting

Today I got it second hand that Sophie slowly leaned over and bit (or maybe just tried to bite) another child. This behavior has been going on for about a week now. This isn't really like Sophie to bite, so we're trying to get to the bottom of this. I've pretty much chalked it up to her 2-year molars. From what I can tell, only one of four has come in. Yesterday I noticed her drooling, this morning she looked as if she might have had a fever and a bit of a snotty nose, and today in the car, she said her teeth hurt. I'd like to think this also explains why she hasn't been sleeping throughout the night for the last couple of weeks, and that once they come in, she'll be back to sleeping all night long, but maybe that's just too much of a stretch.

bounce bounce revolution

Sophie had a blast at the indoor bounce place. She was fearless. The place has about 5 inflatable bouncy castles and variations of the bouncy castle, bouncy slide, bouncy obstacle course. Sophie doesn't really have great jumping coordination but likes the idea of jumping. The weather is supposed to be crummy again this weekend--lots of rain--so we might just be back on Saturday.

Sophie Jumps, Slides

bitey girl

Sophie's been on a bitey rage at school. Last thursday, she bit three times. I'm not sure if that was three different children or the same child three times. But if it was just one, I say that child isn't very smart. If somebody bit me twice in one day, I'd really try to stay away from him/her. I'd think even a two year old could figure that out.

Sophie's word of the day, "mir"

"Mir" in Sophie talk means come here.

Sophie Shopping

For the first time, Sophie seemed to notice all of the other kids pushing around a cart at the grocery store and she insisted on having her own too. She did a wonderful job of not hitting anything or anybody. She was so happy, as you can see by her own distinct Sophie smile.

Sophie manages to lock herself in the bedroom

Scene: Sophie goes into our bedroom and shuts the door behind her. A favorite game of hers is for a parent, especially her dad, to push on the door to try to get in while she pushes back or for him to hide behind the door and pop out yelling boo! This time, however, she´s in there a bit too long with too much silence. I go to check on her and find the door locked. I drop an F-bomb. Mike stays much cooler than I. Perhaps because we saw this day coming. Maybe it was too many bad movies about parents with young children that inspired us to check all the doors in the house to figure out what it would take to lock them from the inside and then unlocked them from the outside. Mike coolly grabbed the screw driver, gave the nob a twist and voila, out she came. Sophie barely had time to whimper. In short, mostly a lame story because there wasn´t much dramatic tension. No locksmith had to be called, no breaking down of doors. Mostly this is just a self-congratualtory post that we did something right, barring my bad language.

Hypnotizing the Tasmanian Devil

I read in some parenting book–or perhaps I am just unconsciously wishing it–that the apogee of toddler frenzy occurs around two years old.

Here she is, two years old on the dot, and she's been whipping around in a tumult of heightened agitation for the last three or four days. This has meant running around the house, hooting and panting right up till it's time for bed.

Bath time resembles a whirlpool.

It is at times such as this, that I am profoundly grateful (smug) that her mother and I instituted a long and complicated bedtime ritual almost a year ago and have been following it ever since.

After the bath and the customary shrieks of outrage that I've dared pull her from her ablutions comes the pounding on of the mirror while I'm attempting to dry her. Then comes the mugging and making of faces as I try to smear petroleum jelly on the backs of her legs (where an ugly rash will pop up to be scratched if I don't) and she tries to distract me. Then comes the diapering.

The diapering.

She's recently taken a shine to big girl panties and has declared diapers to be for babies. Since she so obviously is not a baby, Sophie wants to go diaperless. Unfortunately, she's persisted in her habit of urinating and defecating at will, sometimes lying to our faces when we catch her in the act and try to alert her to the charms of the potty. ("No. Noooo," she'll say when asked if she has to go potty–shaking her little red face and squatting underneath the table). So we, in our turn, have insisted on the diaper. This little war of wills has often threatened to end with Sophie throwing herself headfirst off the changing table in an attempt to escape, so now I let her stand there and pound on the mirror while I arrange her riggings.

Then we wrestle her arms and petroleum-sticky legs into her pajamas. I sigh in relief–the hard part is over. But through this all, Sophie has shown not the least signs of sleepiness: it's been all shrieking and pounding and hooting and splashing.

Now we swing around to the sink for the brushing of the teeth, which is not too bad as Sophie thinks its a jolly game to imitate my own brushing and to sometimes try to stick her toothbrush in my mouth.

Now finally, as we return to the changing table and stare at each other in the mirror, we begin the song that will lead us out of the bathroom and into the bedroom where her mother waits with a recap of the day's events, some milk, books, binky, and another song. This first song is a modified camp song from my youth. The line, "Softly falls the light of day, as our campfire fades away" sees no change in her level of wakefulness. "Silently each Sophie must ask, have I done my daily task," however, elicits the yawn I've been waiting for. "Have I kept my honor bright, have I helped turn out the light?" gets her to turn expectantly. "Oh yes I have, Oh yes I will: turning lights out is what I do," sees her to the door, where, true to her word, she flips out the light.

Then it's downhill to the bedroom, her mother, and the aforementioned story, milk, binky et al.

Her mother makes eye contact, gives a nod; I start the music (Dan Zanes. "Night Owl". Which we used to think was cute and catchy); she turns out the light. Sophie shrieks her accustomed shriek of protest, but once the light goes off, IT NEVER GOES BACK ON. We're in this for keeps now. Then she points to her bedroom; her mother carries her to the door; she rebuffs my attempts at a good night hug while chanting her traditional "No 'ug! No 'ug!", and her mother carries her out and off to her own room.

Silence. A short babbled exclamation. Her mother: "No goose, it's time to sleep". The door closes and Sophie calls out, experimentally, once, twice.

And then once more: silence.

Happy 2nd birthday

Today is sophie's second birthday. We went out for breakfast together this morning. Breakfast was really more about me than Sophie--her birthday was mostly an excuse for me to go get my Challah french toast. Sophie held out pretty well throughout the meal. If the food comes quickly, she does a fairly good job of holding still. Now that we can talk more, a good engaging conversation helps keep her quiescent a bit longer. Sophie told one of the employees, who was wiping down the table next to us: "Wipe please" while she pointed to our table. Kind of weird on several levels. The employee graciously agreed.

We accidentally drove by the children's museum, bad. But I seemed to get across to her the idea that it was closed. When we drove by the mall, she said, "Not here! Target!"

Afterwards, we bought her some gifts on behalf of other family members. Sophie chose some PlayDough, cool doll clothes and some toys to play with in the sand when it gets warmer. At the checkout, Sophie told the checkout person, "Sticker." She's has a freaky awareness of what she wants and where she can get things. We went home and played with the PlayDough and she showed us how we don't need sand to play with the sand toys, just some imagination.

After nap, if we manage to get her asleep, we'll go to the indoor jump place. It's like a child's dream: 5 or 6 inflatable castles in one building. At the end of last summer, she went into her first bouncy castle but wasn't too balanced. Nonetheless, she still had a blast. Today, I expect her to just go crazy. Pictures will come later tonight.

Summer goal: visit every park in the city

My goal this summer is to play at every park in the city, to figure out which parks have the funnest playground equipment. On top of that, we're going to hit the lake at least twice a week once the weather hits 80. Time to get out the shorts, swimming suits, hats and sunblock. I'm ready to get outside. Winter has gone on way, way too long.

Spring! Spring! Spring!

We picked her up a bit earlier than usual today and drove her to the park.

She started hooting in delight a block or two away and didn't stop for basically the entire time we were there. She ran from one structure to the other, cackling and clapping her hands. There were swings and sand and slides and monkey bars and a tether ball and someone had a dog and there was another little kid there with a ball and there was a jungle gym she could climb on (with our help) and she did! All the way to the top!

The park we went to is right next to an elementary school. So the park's playground is supplemented by the school's playground for little kids, a playground for older kids, and yet another all-purpose playground in front of the school. It's basically a whole complex of playgrounds, and we visited them all.

Sophie held our hands–Mama on one side, Dada on the other–and hurried us to the next playground. She positively shrieked and hooted with laughter. Then she looked up at us, mid stride.

"Mama! Dada!" she said "My happy!"

2nd birthday

On Sunday Sophie celebrates her 2nd birthday. Honestly, after the first, the second is somewhat anticlimactic. Tomorrow, Friday, she celebrates at school. Celebrating birthdays isn't like it was when we were children. At school, there's no cake, no cupcakes. Instead they're having fresh fruit and yogurt. I'm really quite happy with that. Sophie doesn't like fake sweet things, so fruit for her is more of treat.

To simplify things, we've been telling her she's already two years old, so she's got that down.

The challenge is to find something fun for her to do on her birthday that she doesn't already do every weekend. It's supposed to rain this weekend, so no park--Bummer! I think we're going to go have a nice breakfast and then go to an indoor inflatable play area. She was supposed to go a few weeks ago for another event, but she was in the hospital, so maybe now is a good time to make it up to her.

project clean up

Sophie Tegel has shown an amazing ability to follow directions recently. By amazing, I really mean that I can ask her to do something and it's clear that she understands, even if she doesn't do it. I realize I often take the path of least resistance so if something needs to be thrown away, I do it. If a toy needs to be picked up, I do it. No more, and by no more, I really just mean that I'm going to ask Sophie to do more of the work. As a beginning point, I'm going to ask her to clean up her room every night before we go to bed. This weekend, I'm going to start labeling her boxes so that she knows where things go. If I can actually follow through with this, we'll at least have one clean room in the house at the end of the evening.

things that go bump in the night

At lunch today Sophie's dad and I were talking about how freaked out we are by the idea that Sophie soon won't be sleeping in a crib and that we'll need to get her a toddler bed because it's clear that she is thinking about how to get herself out of the crib on her own. When I lift her out, I try to keep her clear of the sides so that she doesn't even think she can "help" by pushing up on the side or pushing off with her foot. Already both her dad and I have witnessed her lifting her foot up to the edge. I would be totally ok if she was willing to go to bed then at some point in the night just come crawl into bed with us and continue sleeping (sans kicking or rolling around). But I don't think that will be the case. The idea that this small, curious child is roaming the house at night while I sleep simply makes my skin crawl.

big shovel

Today the snow had melted enough for us to go out to the park--hurrah! In the sandbox there were three shovels. Sophie Tegel (I'm practicing the shift to the new name) picked up the biggest one and said "Big shovel". What a great use of adjectives!

dinosaurs

Sophie really likes dinosaurs. They're fun to say and it's fun to read books about them. At the bookstore she picked up as many dinosaurs as she could hold.

She loves to talk in a dinosaur voice, which is deep and gruff.

New name?

Maybe it's time to change Sophie's name. Sophie clearly knows her own name, but doesn't really ever say it. She knows a lot of other kids' names too. Even if you say, "Sophie, say 'Sophie'" She'll never really say anything. However, she is more responsive to her middle name Tegel. Tegel, for those of you who don't know, is a lovely lake outside of Berlin. It is also the name of one of the Berlin Airports. So to some, her name sounds something like JKF Airport. So, when we tell anybody from Germany (or who knows much about Germany) her name, their answer is often, "You mean, like the airport?" No, not like the airport, like the beautiful lake with the boats bucolically sailing around on it. I'm inclined to go along with Tegel given that every fifth child, at least in our neck of the woods, is named Sophie--the other four are named Sophia. Deliberate! What do you think, Sophie or Tegel?

Conspirators

So Sophie is quite imitative, we know that. She blows on her food 'cause she's seen us do it. She loves to play cooking on her little toy range top, and has recently taken to wearing an old glove as a makeshift oven mitt ("Oo hot! Oo hot!" she'll say). If I stumble and hop on one foot, she'll try hopping too. I've given myself strict orders to watch my sinful tongue in traffic.

One game we play (we being the Mama, the Dada, and the Sophie) is sneaking up and tickling someone. So Mama and Sophie will conspire to tickle Dada; or Dada and Sophie will put into place the proper machinations that will lead to a pincer movement of tickle bugs converging on Mama when she least suspects it; or Dada and Mama will gang up on Sophie. It is all, generally, good.

Sophie gets a kick out of being part of the conspiracy, and will whisper behind her hand in imitation as the plot is hatched. And then we attack. Very cute.

But it occurs to me now, that maybe Sophie didn't really know we were meant to be plotting. Or that she doesn't quite understand a key prerequisite part of a plot (to whit: a co-conspirator). Yesterday, after I'd heaved her out of the bath water and onto the changing table, Sophie commenced to plotting a tickle attack on me with her reflection.

Language News

Some recent sentences:

"No Dada, mah eat!" (When I threatened to take some of her food)

"Mah Mama sok on!" (Pleased with herself because she had managed to pull her mother's sock onto her own foot)

"Dada, no daipuh on!" (Enjoying the breeze preparatory to taking a bath)

"Mama, weah ah oo?" (In a pitch perfect sing-songy lilt--becoming more frantic, though still lilting, as Sophie realizes that her mother is not, in fact, in the car and that she's stuck with just me)

"Nah-ohhhh!" (Not technically a sentence, but imbued with a remarkable range of emotion and nuance: managing to convey that she absolutely does not want to take a bath, that she's amazed I would even ask, and that she now suspects that I might be a bit simple for even bringing up such an idea)

"Mah tees heah!" (Pointing out that just as Woof has a toothbrush and toothpaste, so too does she; and that indeed–gesturing to the bathroom–she's just finished with her nightly ablutions and what are the odds that Woof too would engage in such toothbrushery?)

"No Dada! No Dada! No dees, bok-mah!" (Ah, yes. This would be an indication that she definitely does not want whatever it is, and instead wants "bok-mah")

"Bok-mah! No dees, no dees: bok-mah!" (Okay, "bok-mah" is definitely something, but I'll be darned if I––

oops! and she's hit the floor, screaming and writhing in rage. (Maybe it's Hebrew?)

Obstinate

She is increasingly being it.

"MOH! PEESE!!"

Does "please" still count as politeness if she screams it at you?

She was quite eager to get the freeze-dried strawberries down her gullet today.

I asked her to please modulate her voice.

"Softer and slower," I said, "L-i-i-i-i-ke Th-i-i-i-i-i-s."

"MO-O-O-O-H!" she said, "P-E-E-E-E-E-E-S-E!"

I laughed, and said, "Like a dinosaur!"

This pleased her. She growled "Moh Peese!" two or three times till all of a sudden she realized–hey! I'm not actually getting any moh peese–and re-commenced to shrieking.