dressing herself

Recently, Sophie Tegel's taken to dressing herself. She doesn't do a horrible job, all things considered.

Food

Dad: What do you want to eat?

Sophie: Food.

duh!

Dad: Sophie, What are you going to wear today?

Sophie: Clothes.

future economist

Last Sunday was a perfect day outside. We pulled out some chairs and enjoyed the outdoors. Sophie grabbed an Economist to read and then explained to us how American collateralized mortgage obligations were affecting European banks.

everybody needs at least one good party trick

Old News

Sophie (still Sophie, not Tegel, "Sophie Tegel" maybe, and just sometimes "Tegel," and usually when her mother's calling her, 'cause I can get behind "Sophie Tegel" but just plain "Tegel" is too great a leap), Sophie cottoned onto birthdays just a month or so too late.

It was when she was two years and one month old that she started really noticing the extreme coolness of balloons, streamers, presents and cakes that seemed to be happening with great frequency in the party room(s) of Jungle Java.

"No, no" we'd have to tell her, "We can't go in there, that's somebody's birthday party."

"My birthday na-ow?" she'd ask plaintively. (Or perhaps I'm just imagining the plaintiveness).

"No, goose," I'd say, "Your birthday isn't for another ten months. And we can't do anything special for you till then because it's against the law and if we tried it the police might come and take away all your birthdays for good."

Okay, I never said that.

If we thought we could attract more that a couple of kids to a party we might even consider renting out a room.

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Sometime last week, the sun was shining and she agitated for going outside. So outside we went. And with us came: a ball, a pushcart, several stuffed animals, her own folding chair and a small table, some plastic tubs from her room, and play-doh and cookie cutters. And her tricycle. And a push-bike.

Later she asked for some food ("Daddy, my eat na-ow?") so I served her some milk and fruit and "cookies" (crackers).

She thought this was the greatest thing ever.

"Daddy, my happy birthday na-ow!" she said, and clapped.

A banker or shop owner in the making?

Tegel (no longer Sophie, which is hard to break), has an uncanny sense of money for a two year old. She clearly understands that money has value: she always wants the money in my wallet (although she doesn't really know what to do with it once she has it). And when she is at pretend stores, she understands perfectly that the money can be exchanged for goods. Today at the children's museum, I couldn't drag her away from the cash register with the pretend money and plastic fruits and vegetables.

quickly leaving toddlerhood behind

I just got over the fact that Sophie is no longer a baby. Nowadays she's looking more like a small girl than toddler.

Canoeing on the lake

This morning was lovely. It was ideal spring/summer weather and the nearby lake was still but full of life. Sophie's been watching people canoe, or as she says kayak, around the river and lake and has really been wanting to go herself. So this morning we went to the livery and rented a canoe. We met one of Sophie's school buddies there and we all went canoeing. Beside ducks and geese, we saw a lot of turtles sunning themselves. Nobody fell overboard and no canoes tipped over.

After the canoeing, we played in the sandbox and playground until we were exhausted. At home, I took off her shoes, changed her into another shirt, and she walked over to her crib and waited for me to put her in.

children's garden

There's a new park in town that is part garden, part play area for kids. I love it because they don't just have a bunch of plastic play structures (although there is still clearly a lot of plastic going on). My favorite part was finding "gems" in the sandbox. It seems that it is understood that after you find them, you hide them for somebody else to find. Sophie loved hiding them for others to find almost as much as she enjoyed finding them.

back to see the birds (and extra critters)

Sophie (who now completely calls herself Tegel) really liked the birds so we went back to see them again. We got lucky again because not only did we get to see the birds but we also saw and petted a wallaby. The critter house was open. Inside Tegel found a bunny to pet and checked out the turtles, again.

Categories of birds

Yesterday on the way to go see the birds again, we started talking about the kinds of birds we would see: eagle, vulture, and owl. Then I asked her what are some other kinds of birds, not expecting her to answer. She said chicken. Wow, yes, chicken is a bird. Then she said duck. Oh my gosh. I have a baby-genius riding in the back of the car with me, who has gotten the idea that animals can be organized into categories. Next she said cow.

birds open?

Every place she likes to go nowadays, she'll ask repeatedly if it's open. Apparently she enjoyed looking at the birds at the park enough yesterday that today she asked, "Birds open?"

getting ready for the zoo

Next week, I think, Sophie's going to the Detroit Zoo and later this summer the Indianapolis Zoo. I wasn't sure how interested she would be this year, since last year she was interested for only about 30 minutes. In my attempt to improve this year's experience (and to not waste 3o some dollars), we stopped by the library to pick up a bunch of books about animals and we are checking out local petting zoos. Today we went to check out some different birds and reptiles. The birds were in pretty big zoo-like cages and she loved looking at them. I think she figured out that there is more that one kind of bird after looking at owls, eagles and a turkey vulture. When they did a little show and brought out some turtles and snakes to pet, she didn't flinch. She loved touching the corn snake.

Sophie's first movie

Today we took Sophie to see her first movie. We went to see a documentary called Babies. If you haven’t heard about this movie, it is about 4 babies growing up in different parts of the world. Sophie is quite a fan of looking at pictures of mommy, daddy, JJ and Tegel, so a documentary seemed ideal. Once when we tried to watch a little bit of a movie at home, she found it quite scary (Elmo in Grouchland). That only lasted for about two minutes before she shut the screen on the computer to make it turn off. Oddly, the PG rating for Babies was much less violent than Elmo in Grouchland that was rated G.

Since the movie was right at Sophie’s naptime, we figured she might just fall asleep. She did nothing of the sort. She loved every minute of it—except for a really scary movie that they showed previews for before Babies—grrrr, what where they thinking? Throughout the movie, she was the quietest and calmest she’s been since I can remember. The showing we went to was prepared for parents with children so there were also a lot of babies in the theater—sort of an extra bonus.

My favorite part of the movie: when the San Francisco baby tries to walk out on the Mother Earth mommy and baby class. Constructed "enrichment" just isn't the same as the real thing. But don't tell Sophie that, we're going to our toddler class on tuesday ;-)

What's in your medicine cabinet?

The other night, I went to open the medicine cabinet to get my tooth brush and toothpaste and there were the raisins. They might still be there. I'm resigned to parenthood.

2 more minutes?

A local store has an area for kids where you can leave them while you shop. I hadn't been in the store in the last six months or maybe longer, so it never dawned on me that Sophie would like to go in the play area until she saw it and pointed and yelled, "This, this!" So I put her in and did my shopping. After paying for my purchase, I went to pick Sophie up. She resisted and told me, "Two more minutes?" What? Where did she pick that up? We really don't use that expression and if so, loosely at best and rarely with two minutes as our marker. I was so impressed that I told her she could play for two more minutes, but that I was setting my timer. After about 4 minutes, I told her time was up, to which she responded, "Two more minutes?"

Octagon Kayak Surprise

She's impressed people by knowing the word octagon and by identifying stop signs as such.

Well, she identifies hexagons and pentagons as octagons too, so...

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We walked down to the river last week and she was really impressed when she saw a canoe. (I was less impressed, it was an inflatable thing that looked decidedly unseaworthy).

She identified this canoe as a "kayak". Um, excuse me? Where did she learn the word kayak? When did she develop such an enthusiasm for kayaks? She seriously wants a kayak of her own...

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Before her mom got back last week, I was planning to take her to the park as a surprise.

"I've got a surprise for you" I said.

"My surprise mommy pick up now!" she said.

Awww!

back home

JJ and I went on a bit of a vacation together sans bebe. Sophie stayed home with her dad. This was the longest I had been away from Sophie and I was ready to see her again once we got off the plane and past security. When I first saw Sophie, she seemed so happy and excited. She was sitting in her dad´s arms, so he put her down and she ran over and gave JJ a big hug. Shot down. I had to make do with leftovers. At least I got to sit next to her on the ride back home.