Sophie's Baby Blog

Teachers and Their Jobs

2008-11-19T02:20:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Sarah and Sophie had a conversation about her teachers, and Sarah asked Sophie to name her teachers.

Sophie: "Mrs. Grant."

Sarah: "Right!"

Sophie: "Mrs. Keller."

Sarah: "Who else?"

Sophie: "Mrs. Meadows."

Sarah: "Good, who else?"

Sophie: "Aunt Susan."

Sarah: "That's right. How about Mrs. White? She teaches you sometimes."

Mrs. White is in charge of the school and does some special event stuff with the kids, like making lemonade with them on yellow day.

Sophie: "Yeah, Mrs. White! She tells me when time-out is over."

Apparently Sophie gets sent to the principal's office -- so to speak -- from time to time.

Ahem

2008-11-16T00:12:00.000-05:00

Sophie figured out how to clear her throat tonight. The whole way home from dinner tonight, she was in the back seat going, "Ah-he-hem" over and over again.

About Those Spots

2008-11-15T13:11:00.001-05:00

The spots on Sophie's legs and tummy had cleared up by the next day. All's well, it seems!

Space... The Final Frontier

2008-11-15T12:45:00.001-05:00

We all watched the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour last night. Ever since, Sophie has been "playing space games."

This entails a lot of running around making rocket noises.

During the launch, I explained what was going on to her. I can tell she was listening because she occasionally asks me to do a countdown for her, including making the sound for the "water 'pression system."

I'm all for encouraging this kind of enthusiasm.

Little Red Spots

2008-11-12T15:21:00.002-05:00

Sophie woke up this morning with little red spots all over her legs and feet. We kept her home from school, and called the doctor, who set up an appointment for 1:45 this afternoon.

By the time it was time to leave for the appointment, the spots had spread onto her tummy as well.

Ten or fifteen years ago, I'd have guessed it was chicken pox, but of course that's pretty uncommon now that kids are required to get vaccinated for it.

They got home from the appointment about an hour ago; the verdict is that Sophie probably has some kind of virus, that in concert with the sinus infection she already had, and the antibiotics she's taking for that, have caused her immune system to get a little miffed and that's where the spots came from.

It should clear up sometime soon. If it lasts more than 7-10 days, we're supposed to call back.

Sophie's School Program

2008-11-12T03:10:00.003-05:00

Tonight was Sophie's school program. She and the other 3-year-olds sang several cute little songs, including choreography. It was so, so cute. Sophie only sang about a third of the time, and just did the little dances instead, but she did a great job (especially for a 3-year-old).

To our relief, she was well-behaved, and was not one of the two kids that were crying most of the time.

As it got close to the end, Sophie started doing an altogether different kind of dance, and by the time the final round of applause was underway, she was mouthing to Sarah "I need to go potty" and holding herself. She made it to the bathroom without incident!

On top of that, tonight she went poopie in the potty without prompting. I think we can officially say she's housebroken! Yay!

I have video that I hope to post tomorrow or the next day, depending on how long it takes to get imported and do whatever twiddling I might need to do.

A Lot of Stuff

2008-11-10T10:13:00.002-05:00

It's been a busy week or so here, and I haven't posted updates as often as I'd like, so here's a special bonus edition of Sophie's blog with everything I can think of lumped into it!

Last week, I was vacuuming the house in preparation for my parents to visit, while Sophie flitted around the house in her butterfly wings. I had just finished up and sat down on the stairs to wind up the power cord. Then Sophie came up to me telling me all about what a pretty blue butterfly she was.

I looked up at her, and she had scribbled blue marker all over her face! The right side had scribbled loops and circles and lines, and the left side had dots all over it.

I said, "Sophie, what did you do to your face?"

She grinned and said, "I decorated myself like a butterfly, Daddy!"

My parents arrived the next night. Sophie was still sort of awake when we got back from the airport at around 11:30 PM, and Sarah went in to check on her. Sophie mumbled something about "It's not morning yet, why are Grandma and Grandpa here?"

We'd told her they'd be there when she wakes up in the morning.

She had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa. She likes jumping around on Grandpa a whole lot!

On Friday morning, we all went to the aquarium up in Gatlinburg. It's a cute little aquarium. Nice setup, but still seems kind of weird going to an aquarium in a landlocked state -- and in the mountains, no less. Anyway, Sophie was quite impressed by everything, but certainly didn't dawdle. We were done there in about an hour and a half. They had a play area she enjoyed, with fish tanks you could crawl under and stand up in a bubble in the middle of. That was fun for her.

On Saturday, Sophie got her last prize for going poopie in the potty: Tuck from the Wonder Pets. From now on, we told her, she can go poopie in the potty just because she's a big girl!

Overall, Sophie's reading a lot more and without as much help. She still prefers, I think, to be read to, but she can do it on her own, even with books she's never seen before. She's really good at sounding out words she doesn't already know. For example, Sarah recently put up some posters of musical instruments in the playroom. Sophie was able to read the names of most of the instruments, including the ones she wasn't familiar with. Her pronunciation was sometimes off a bit, but that's not a big surprise for a three-year-old!

Sophie was unexpectedly easy-going about Grandma and Grandpa leaving yesterday afternoon; she came along to the airport with me, and while she complained that she wanted to go on the airplane too, she didn't freak out, either. Ah, growth!

Halloween

2008-11-02T17:40:00.002-05:00

Sophie had a great Halloween. She was very excited about trick-or-treating, and spent the whole day looking forward to it. She finally settled on dressing as Cinderella, which was great since we already had the costume for her. Sarah just touched it up with the iron and we were good to go!

Around 5:00, we headed over to Aunt Susan's for their annual Halloween party. Sophie had fun playing with her cousins and belting out songs on the piano.

We got home at a little after 7:00 and Sophie and Mommy got ready to go trick-or-treating while I set the pumpkins outside and all that good stuff. They headed out and I handled the candy-doling. They were out for a little over an hour, and Sophie came back with quite a haul! She was so excited!

She brought it in and dumped it out on my ottoman and counted it out. She lost her place a couple of times, but was able to count up to 21 before getting distracted.

After she got her pajamas on and mostly ready for bed, she got to eat a couple of Kit-Kat bars, which she absolutely loved. Then it was a good, solid tooth-brushing and bed. A great day!

A Busy Morning

2008-10-30T10:42:00.002-04:00

Several things of note happened this morning.

Sophie has a placemat she uses that on one side is a map of the United States; there are several states there that she can point out and name. On the reverse side of it are pictures of all the states' flags, with information about them. She's been looking at those a lot lately, and asking questions.

This morning, while she was eating breakfast, she was looking at those, and remarked, "Washington and Oregon rhyme, Daddy."

A little while later, she asked to play with stickers. She brought me a sheet of stickers in the shape of starts in various colors.

I got a piece of paper, and we sat down together. She's not quite able to peel stickers off a sheet yet, so I did that for her. First, she asked for a red one. We stuck that on the paper.

Then she asked for an orange one to put next to it. Then yellow. Then green. By this point, I'm intrigued, because they're going down in the order they appear on the rainbow. Sure enough, blue came next, followed by purple. Then she said, "Wait, Daddy... we forgot indigo. Put indigo here," and pointed between the blue and purple stars.

So I found a dark blue one and put it there. Nice call, Sophie!

The last interesting thing to happen this morning: I was in the kitchen eating my breakfast, while Sophie watched Handy Manny on the TV in the playroom. Suddenly I heard a loud "pop!" sound. A few moments later, Sophie's plaintive voice comes through: "Daddy, the TV stopped working."

I went in, and sure enough, the TV is off. A few button mashes later, it's clear: the TV I bought in college finally gave up the ghost. Rest in peace, old friend. Rest in peace.

So in a while, I think I'll go buy an el-cheapo TV over at Wal-Mart.

Going Solo

2008-10-26T09:20:00.001-04:00

The last week or so, Sophie's suddenly started (finally!) to be able to do a lot more dressing and undressing herself. A couple of days ago, she surprised us by starting to show up wearing clothes we didn't put on her ourselves. Usually stuff like her princess costume, for example.

She can put on her own panties now, finally, and is starting to be able to get her own shirts off and on.

We were starting to wonder if this would ever happen!

The last handful of weeks -- ever since around the time preschool started -- she's been changing and growing up extra fast. It's a little bit disconcerting to watch sometimes.

In related news (sort of), we're still unsure what she's going to wear for Halloween. She'd wanted to be a witch again for some time now, but the last couple of days she's been talking about being a ballerina. We'll have to pin her down to something pretty soon!

Wonderfulness

2008-10-25T21:02:00.002-04:00

Today, Sarah and Sophie had this exchange:

Sarah: (to Sophie) You're wonderful!

Sophie: And beautiful!

Playtime

2008-10-25T03:01:00.002-04:00

Tonight we went out for dinner, and afterward, we popped over to the mall for doing a little shopping. While Sarah went and did her thing, Sophie and I went to the mall's indoor playground.

Times have certainly changed since we first went there. Back then, Sophie was among the smallest kids there. Now she's among the biggest, with the exception of a couple kids who were really too old to be in there in the first place.

She can use all the equipment in there to the fullest now. She can walk across the balance beam-like log without any help (not even to get up onto it). She can go up and down the bridge She can even climb and sit up on top of the hard plastic tent, then slide down the other side.

It's amazing to watch.

We did have an unfortunate incident. One of the older girls that was hanging out there parked herself inside the tent and wouldn't move. Sophie wanted to crawl through it (as did several of the other kids), but even asking very politely if the other girl would please move didn't work. Eventually Sophie broke down sobbing. That other girl was a real brat.

Eventually her mother got off her cell phone and actually, you know, acted something like a parent. I was pretty annoyed.

Anyway, Sophie got over it quickly as she always does (I'm so glad she's resilient that way!) and resumed playing.

At one point she climbed back up on top of the tent and slipped, falling down onto the floor, pretty much landing on her face. She looked up at me in surprise, said, "Whoops!" then "I'm okay!" and got up and started playing again. Whew!

That's another way I'm really glad she's resilient!

Inventing Words

2008-10-22T17:36:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, Sophie described the leaf she painted in art class this way: "It was really, really, really big, Mommy. It was hunorgus!"

Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-22T17:21:00.002-04:00

This morning we all went out to the Pumpkin Patch at Maple Lane Farms with Sophie's preschool, bringing Sophie's aunt Susan along (Susan teaches art at the school, so we gave her a ride). It was super cold out, but we had a great time. The first order of business was a fun hayride, pulled behind a huge orange tractor. While waiting for the tractor, Sophie and her friend from preschool, Katie, met up and started playing. They stuck together for the rest of the morning.

The tractor took us all around the farm and dropped us off at the pumpkin patch, where each of us got to pick out a pumpkin.

Sophie wanted a little bitty pumpkin, but they didn't have any small ones that weren't squashed (no pun intended), so we all got pretty big ones. I helped corral both Katie and Sophie, which wasn't all that hard, as they stuck to each other like glue. At one point, they were stomping through the pumpkin patch, holding hands, and one of them (I couldn't tell which) said, "You're my best friend." The other replied: "You're my best friend forever."

Awwww... so cute!

After another tractor ride back, we put the pumpkins into the car, then wandered over to a big tent they set up for snacktime. Sophie had a little frosted cake and a box of apple juice. After that, we figured it was time to head out, so we packed it in and left, stopping for lunch with Aunt Susan on the way home.

Watching Sophie play with Katie was probably the high point of the outing. Especially because by the end they were trying to arrange a play date. It was really sweet.

Cinderella Dance

2008-10-20T02:44:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, Sophie made up a song and dance routine about Cinderella. We have video.

Princesses at the Gate

2008-10-19T09:36:00.001-04:00

I got up this morning having heard Sophie chattering in her room. I wandered toward her room and was stopped in my tracks by the sight of Sophie perched on top of the gate in her bedroom doorway, one leg on each side, in the process of swinging her right leg up and over it.

So... apparently we're done with the gate there. Time to bite the bullet on that one. Oh boy!

Hide and Seek

2008-10-17T17:24:00.001-04:00

The other night, Sophie announced that she wanted to play hide and seek. Usually, this means she sits somewhere -- typically out in the open -- and wants me to "seek" her.

But this time, she wanted to play for real. She sat in a chair, closed her eyes, and counted to ten. Then, when she got to ten, she called out, "ready not, here I come!" and started looking for me.

She found me pretty fast the first time -- I had just ducked around the corner, not really expecting her to look for me.

The second time, she couldn't find me. I was in the living room, where there were no lights on, sitting behind her easel. She wandered back and forth through the house, going, "Oh Daddy, where are you?" It was so cute!

Eventually I started making noises to help her find me. When that didn't do the trick, I actually called out and told her I was in the living room. That finally did it. Apparently she didn't think I'd be in a room with no lights on.

The third time, I hid in the kitchen, sitting on the floor in the corner. She found me that time after maybe 45 seconds of looking around.

She's so much fun to play with!

Fall Festival

2008-10-14T18:11:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, we took Sophie to the Fall Festival. She had a blast! They had a number of fun things for little kids to do, and I think we tried them all.

The first thing we visited was the "tots area" -- this is the area where we spent most of our time last year, but this year, Sophie's mostly outgrown it. They had a little carousel, which she rode once (it was what she asked to do first), then she ran through the maze a couple of times.

Then we moved on to the bounce chamber -- one of those big inflated rooms with a bouncy floor. She waited very patiently for her turn (there was a group in it when we got there, plus one more group ahead of us), then went on in when it was her turn. She jumped and giggled and had a great time (we have the pictures to prove it). When they announced that it was time to get out, she got in line and crawled right out, no fuss. We were so proud!

After that, we headed over to get her a green balloon from the Green Bank booth (get it? Green Bank, green balloon, woo, clever!). From there, we spotted a booth that had drums made of upside-down buckets.

Oh boy, was that a hit (no pun intended)! Sophie loves drumming, and she stood there pounding away on those buckets with the sticks, belting out all kinds of songs, including several we didn't teach her. We think music class in school is a big success!

After that, I headed back to get the car while they visited the jumping room full of balls, where Sophie had (of course) a lot of fun.

Then I picked them up and we all went out to eat before heading home. It was a great afternoon!

Fall Break

2008-10-08T14:17:00.002-04:00

This week is fall break; Sophie doesn't have preschool. We didn't have fall break when I was a kid. I'm slightly envious.

The other day, I took Sophie to the mall to wander around for a while, and they had a stand there selling tons of stuffed toys, including some of her latest favorite cartoon characters. I sat down with Sophie and told her that I was going to buy a bunch of them, but that she could only have one right then. The rest would be prizes for going poopie in the potty like a big girl.

She agreed that that was a good plan, so I bought the four of the Backyardigans she doesn't have, and the three characters from Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!. She got Widget from WWW right then, and yesterday got Wubbzy. She lost Wubbzy last night after having an accident, and lost Widget today for the same reason. She backslid a fair amount while we were on vacation, and hasn't recovered yet. Frustrating.

At least we now know she's capable of potty training. Just need to get there.

The Great Poopie Adventure

2008-10-02T14:51:00.003-04:00

Sophie's trying so hard to learn to use the potty for pooping. She's pretty good about it for going pee-pee, but the other is really taking trouble for her to get the hang of.

Yesterday, we re-instituted potty prizes, but in a new way: any time she goes poopie in the potty, she gets a prize. If she goes anywhere else, she loses one. So yesterday after lunch, she valiantly tried to go. Here's that story:

She finishes up her lunch and announces she needs to go poopie. So I clean her up and put her on the floor, and she opts to go on the little potty in the playroom. She heads in there, sits down, and grunts and strains for several minutes to no effect. I wander off to finish my own lunch, leaving her to her business.

After a couple more minutes, she comes into the kitchen, pants around her ankles, hobbling along toward the stairs. "I'm going to try it on the big potty," she announces. I have her pull up her pants so she can get upstairs safely, and help her get the bathroom light on. She plunks down on that potty and starts, once again, grunting and straining, again without success. After a few minutes, she looks up me, her face flushed from the effort, and says, "Daddy, help me!"

Chuckling, I say, "I'm not sure I can help. What do you want me to do?"

"Daddy," she replies earnestly, "Push on my head to make the poopie come out!"

That has to be one of the most classic lines in all history.

Another story along similar lines. Just a few minutes ago, Sophie was alone in the playroom and Sarah was upstairs ironing. After a while, Sophie wanders up the stairs without her pants on and, well, not entirely clean.

Sarah asks, "Did you go poopie?"

Sophie admits that she did.

"Did you go in the potty?"

"No, I went in my panties."

Sarah goes down to the playroom to clean up the mess, and finds the panties lying on the floor next to the little potty. They are empty. The little potty has obviously had poop in it, but is also empty.

Sarah discovers that Sophie had an accident in her panties, then emptied them into the little potty. Then she carried the bowl from the little potty up the stairs and emptied that into the big potty.

Sophie felt it necessary to point out that the big rideable horse we'd just brought back up to her earlier today was not a prize, so we couldn't take it away.

Sophie's trying so hard to do a good job.

Florida Vacation, Day Ten

2008-09-28T20:17:00.002-04:00

We got up early (really early) and had breakfast at the hotel. Sophie was super-cute eating a banana and blueberry muffin at a table for breakfast. She looked like such a big girl!

We stopped at McDonald's for drinks at one point, and Sophie got to release some pent-up energy playing in their playground. It was the first time she'd gotten to play in a fast food restaurant's playground, and she got the hang of it pretty fast. Eventually she was climbing all the way to the top of the very tall tower and sliding down the long, winding tubular slide. After about a half hour of that, we got back on the road.

Unfortunately, we had to make an unscheduled stop about 20 minutes later when Sophie decided once again to let Georgia know how much she dislikes their roads by throwing up.

Fortunately, only two hours after that, we were home. We had a fantastic vacation, but it was nice to be home.

Florida Vacation, Day Nine

2008-09-27T19:40:00.002-04:00

We started our trip home today. We had the car packed and ready to go by 10 AM. Sophie immediately settled in to an afternoon of watching Ni Hao, Kai-lan on the DVD player in the back seat while we drove.

We stopped in Gainesville for lunch; Sophie had "rainbow pancakes" -- that's pancakes with sprinkles on top.

She and the kids at the next table kept each other entertained, until Sophie -- after we "forced" her to eat some of her eggs -- stuffed them into her mouth until she gagged and threw up all over the table. Sigh.

We got back in the car and stopped at the Georgia welcome center for a break and to walk around for a while. Sophie entertained the hosts there with an impromptu song and dance number, which was absolutely hilarious. We made it to Macon, Georgia, where we checked into a hotel and went to the Golden Corral for dinner.

Sophie was very enamored with being able to pick her own food -- and insisted on putting each item in a different-colored bowl. Sarah was so proud, while I was a little disturbed. She had a great supper, including a whole bowl of cooked carrots, so we told her she could have "anything" she wanted. She finally got the piece of cake she'd been asking about for a couple of days, and boy did she like it.

Florida Vacation, Day Eight

2008-09-26T21:47:00.002-04:00

Today was our last day at the beach. Sophie continues to surprise us by getting more and more at ease in the water -- which is funny because she was never exactly timid about it.

Sarah had a hard time keeping Sophie from wandering off both in the water and out today.

For dinner tonight, we went back to the Pub because Sophie wanted to see the giant turtle there again.

Florida Vacation, Day Seven

2008-09-25T23:02:00.002-04:00

Today was a very relaxing day. We hung out both in the house and on the beach, and had take-out seafood for lunch. For dinner, we made tacos at the house.

It's gotten to the point that every day is more or less the same as the one before, except for whose turn it is to get up with Sophie and what we wind up eating. This has been a great vacation, but it's almost over.

Florida Vacation, Day Six

2008-09-24T22:32:00.002-04:00

Sophie played with Legos all morning and had some Pop-Tarts for breakfast. Then we hit the beach and took a nap.

In the afternoon, Sophie and I took a dip in the pool. After that, we all took baths and showers and then went out to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. Sophie got a kick out of getting to pick her own dinner. It wasn't the most nutritious meal ever, but she had a lot of fun with her dinner of blueberry muffins, croutons, grapes, pizza, and ice cream with chocolate sauce and sprinkles.