Williamsburg and Jamestown

We went to Williamsburg and Jamestown for Thanksgiving with mixed results. While she enjoyed herself, it wasn't as edifying was we might have expected. I feel she knows no more about 17th century American history than before. In Williamsburg she mostly entertained herself with leaves and sitting on stairs. With this lack of attention, she'll never get a 5 on the AP American History test. Glad we didn't pay the entrance fees for us all. At $144 for the four of us, those would have been the most expensive leaves ever.

In Jamestown, she loved dressing up in the armor and getting on the boats, but she was horribly frustrated that they didn't actually sail. The museum could have made a killing if they had sold pretend armor next to the place where you can try it on.

Her absolute favorite place was the children's museum in Richmond. In part, perhaps, because it's more of an indoor playground than a museum. We stopped there both on the way out to Williamsburg and on the return trip. However, with this trip, she's gotten the word museum down and that is surely going to present problems the next time we suggest going to a museum. She's going to think, cool indoor playground, when we're really talking about checking out a bunch of old pictures and statues that can't be touched.

pokadie, pookady, poke-a-di ???

One of Sophie´s favorite made up words is pokadie, pronounced poke-a-d. She will sometimes use this word as a name for her baby, stuffed animal or food she´s cooking. I don´t know if she thinks it means something or if she knows the word is made up. I´ll have to wait until she´s about five to ask and find out.

An exclusive club

I was told to leave my daughter's room this afternoon.

"Why?" I asked.

"Only girls!" she said.

working vocabulary

Sophie's picking up words as fast as we can introduce them. Some of her favorites that have made it into her working vocabulary: backhoe, stem and mulch. One might think there's not a lot of opportunities to use these words in daily conversation, but Sophie finds them.

weighing in at 30lb.

Today Sophie just tipped the scale at 30lbs.

London Bridge

This evening Sophie requested London Bridge.

It was her bath time, so she stripped off all her clothes first.

"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down," her mother and I sang. During this time, fast naked girl ran underneath the bridge and around her mother about seven times, cackling in glee.

"London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady!"

That lasted long enough for another three trips under the bridge.

Then: "Take the k--"

Sophie abruptly juked left, ran down the hall, cackling all the way, and into the bathroom.

We heard a splash, and--pause for one beat, two beats--then: "My need potty! Pee pee coming!"

broccoli with my oatmeal

This morning I was preparing lunches as her father was cooking breakfast. Sophie saw me getting lunch ready and said, "I want broccoli with my oatmeal." Our answer, "Of course!" So for breakfast this morning she ate oatmeal with a side of broccoli.

And for "dessert" after her fish tonight, she ate some frosted shredded wheat, her newest favorite snack after seaweed.

How long will she keep this up?

don't play me quite yet

Tonight we mixed things up a bit, I gave her a bath and her father read to her. After the bath, when we were brushing her teeth, she wanted to suck out the toothpaste from the tube (I think it tastes like fake bubblegum), which I nixed. She told me that daddy let her do it. Oh, really??? That's odd because that's not really like him to let his daughter suck toothpaste straight out of the tube. So to play along, I say, I'm going to ask Daddy. "Nope," comes back the reply. Good try, Sly Boots, but you need to do that when Daddy isn't sitting in the next room overhearing our conversation.

At once, that shows some higher brain function, but I feel slightly offended that she might just think I would fall for that.

playing hide-and-seek sophie style

She tells you where to hide, then she leaves the room, counts to ten and comes and finds you.

Then she'll hide in the same spot. You go out of the room, count to ten and you come look for her.

No matter who finds whom, it seems to be hysterically funny.

New words Sophie's used today in casual converstion

Sophie's vocabulary is exploding.

On a walk outside along the path, Sophie gets a leaf to give to each of us and tells us, "Hold it by the stem."

I'm guessing she got "stem" from school. Maybe JJ.

At dinner, as she was eating her salad, she said, "More vivava." ??? We've now taken to asking her to describe what she means when we can't understand. Turns out she wanted more balsamic vinegar on her baby greens. This word, I'm particularly pleased with. First, because she remembered vinegar. Once I figured out what she was trying to say, it made perfect sense. But I really appreciated it because she doesn't know the word "ranch dressing" and likes to eat a nice salad of baby greens, broccoli and cucumber. The girl has good taste in food.

Circumlocution

So her language is so good now that I don't even know where or when she learned half of what she says.

"squeeze" for instance. Who taught her that?

But sometimes her pronunciation isn't that great.

Tonight in the bath, she requested a mukluk.

"A mukluk?" I asked.

"No, muk-luk!" she said.

"What's a mukluk?" I asked.

"Dis baby towel." she said.

"Oh. Washcloth?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "washcloth."