whistling, clapping, refusing to sleep

Sophie's had two firsts today.

We demonstrated blowing a plastic whistle a couple of times and then put it in her mouth.  After a certain degree of mastication, she produced a whistle, looking thoroughly delighted with herself once she had.  It's hit and miss on reliably replicating the whistle right now, but still.

She also started clapping (or making clapping motions) when we did so.  Yay Sophie!

In more aggravating news, she's still off-kilter from her recent transcontinental flight and subsequent jet lag.  She is at this moment howling in protest (at nine thirty at night!) when she should be sleeping soundly.  Her bed time is 8 p.m.

She was fairly good on the flights, but I'm afraid she has come to expect a nice pair of arms--or at least our soothing presence--to fall asleep to.

Twelve Thousand

So I guess she's standing now.

All through the (long Christmas break-y) weekend, she's been standing holding on to things and occasionally letting go.  At first it was hardly standing.  Just a quick "look Ma, no hands" moment with wild eyes and arms outstretched for balance.

But we started counting (one thousand, two thousand), and she just made it to twelve.

This has been a definite project for her.  She gets all concentrate-y and holds out her hands to steady herself.  This is particularly amusing when she does this while on her knees.  (*That* doesn't count, we tell her).

These things take me by surprise.  She starts out doing something new and I think, oh she's going to be standing soon, and three days later: twelve thousand.

Also, ALSO, she can grab the top rail of her play-n-pack from the outside.  !!!!!!!!  Last I noticed, two weeks ago or something, she was too small to reach the rail from the inside.

Soon she'll be running headlong into things.

lizard girl at Jungle Java

There is an indoor playground here called Jungle Java.  Think of a McDonald's playground, only bigger, better, and with coffee instead of hamburgers.

Sophie enjoys this place immensely.

(So do we.  She's free until she's one year old, and they have free (though tortoise slow) internet.)

The toddler area, where we hang out, has a ramp and a slide and a faux "cave" with soft cushiony stalagmites and stalactites that are good for chewing on.  And a stuffed lion that is sturdy enough to be ridden.  But it is not just the play area, but the other kids she enjoys.

This is the toddler area.  For toddlers.  Age four and under, can't you kids read?  This space is regularly invaded by bigger kids overflowing the vast, multistoried complex of tree house, climbing walls, zip slides, and obstacle course that comprises the main play area.

I've been working on getting Sophie to climb the bumpy ramp to the slides.  She's a desultory worker at best--easily distracted by oh look I'm sitting on vinyl I wonder what it tastes like.

The big boys invade, rushing up and around us, blatantly disregarding the fact that they are older than four.  I have in the past kicked them out.  Now, I tell them that if they're in the baby area they need to act like babies.  They consider.  No, I am told, they are not babies, they are ducks.

While we are having this discussion, Sophie is newly engaged.  She looks at the boys with rapturous adoration:  they run! they climb! they tumble!  With a remarkable firmness of purpose, she scales the ramp to the slide, eager to join in the fun.

As she works her way up and onward, she keeps her eyes on her goal and her little tongue pops out of her mouth in a cute little display of baby concentration.  She pants with excitement and exertion, and her tongue flicks back and forth.  She looks like a lizard.

A cute lizard, but still.

I wonder what side of the family *that* comes from.

anticipatory giggles

Sophie has two laughs: a cackle, which I'm afraid she gets from me, and a throaty chuckle, which may or may not come from her mother.

She's quite the giggly, cackling, chuckling girl.

I will hold my hand in front of her and flex my fingers in a grasping motion while making a clicking noise.

These are the tickle bugs, and when she sees them, Sophie knows they will be coming to get her.

So she stops, looks.  Her eyes get wider.  And she starts to giggle.

Click-click-click, the tickle bugs are coming!

And she throws herself against my thigh, rolls her head around, and laughs, and laughs, before they can even get to her.

linearity and book reading

At her evening story time, Sophie likes to be the one turning the pages.  She's gotten the linearity of it down fairly well now, attempting to turn pages from the right to the left.

The trouble is, her little fingers can't quite grasp a single page or separate it from its brethren.  The result is a frustrated reader.  

She knows that pink flower--dress comes after green pear--leaf, but when she grabs at the page, all of a sudden we've jumped to red shoes--apple.

WTF????!!!!!!!

It's like books have this mystifying ability to show one thing and then another and just as you're really getting the idea of object permanence and linear order, somebody comes around and just unilaterally decides we're gonna skip over purple grapes--tricycle, orange fish--towel, black kitten--coat, and oh just a lot of stuff to go right to gray parrot--rabbit or even to the back cover of the frickin' book.  And it really tries a girl's patience when you've been working hard and growing brain cells and developing this "right page turned over onto left page" cadence and things just refuse to stay in their accustomed order and "bah!" I say "bah!" and "bah! bah! bahbahbahbahbah-BAH!"  and fine, oh great, now Daddy's turning the pages for me, I am *so* over this. Not gonna even look at the pages anymore. Just look at the lamp over there. bah.

Rather than calming her, story time sometimes has the opposite effect.  Most nights we never get to brown bread--goat (my personal favorite) before we have to call it quits and turn to the bottle and a song.

Tooth

She's got one.  Just barely peeking out of her gums.

It makes her cranky.

Multi-syllabic

She's started babbling with more than one "ba" now, stringing ga's and ah's and oo's together.

Also:  she was standing up, holding my hands tonight, when she saw something interesting.  She let go of one hand to turn toward whatever it was and then absentmindedly let go of the other.

She stood there for, oh, probably only a second or so but it seemed much longer, till she kind of realized she was tightrope walking without a net.  She slowly, deliberately, but kind of worriedly grabbed my hand again and lowered herself to a sitting position (something else she's recently learned how to do).

Also:  she gazed with rapt adoration and joyous wonder this afternoon at the shower curtain as I opened and closed it for her entertainment.  It opens!  It closes!  It's big and fluttery and makes a sound!