Cupboards!

Today Sophia learned she can open the cupboards. This is the newest stage of us being in trouble and her taking over the house stage-by-stage.

Sophia on the Rampage

Again, it's been a week since posts to our blog. I figured I should at least post some pictures before I start getting more messages of "concern" (which are really messages of "post more pictures of the baby!!!"). It's been a fairly quiet week, although we did some fun things this weekend. Saturday Paul and Sophia spent in Battle Ground with his parents while I worked. Sunday we took Sophia to the park and she had her first experiences walking outside on uneven ground and riding in a swing. Both were big hits.

I also mentioned in my last post that we were trying to keep the toy chaos to a minimum. Just to show how a week later, that isn't working I had to post this photo of Sophia's blocks scattered all over the floor. The blocks and little wagon were made for her by Grandpa Earl.

One of her favorite things to do is watch her bathtub fill up. We get her undressed to her diaper as quickly as possible so she can waddle down the hall and watch it fill. She stands at the edge of the tub shrieking and pointing at her toys floating in the water. We have gotten some great video footage of this. Still photos don't do it justice.

Finally, she has taken to saying "uh-oh" when she throws something on

the floor or when she drops something. We tried to explain to her that it isn't an "uh-oh" when she does it on purpose. But she doesn't seem to get it yet. Saturday Paul spoke to his sister Amy and she commented that of all the things in the world we could teach her to say when something falls, we taught Sophia something as boring as "uh-oh." Amy has a point. Amy suggested we teach her "catastrophe." I think it's a bit beyond her verbal skills at this time, but if we start working on it now, Sophia will get it eventually. So, just for Amy, we've been saying "catastrophe" a lot. Unfortunately, this will teach Sophia a fairly low level of what constitutes a catastrophe, but it's more entertaining than "uh-oh."

10 Months old!

Today Sophia is ten months old. I don't know where the time went. She is so much fun these days. Her newest skill is getting up without pulling herself up on anything. She gets up in an A-frame position and walks her hands up from there. It's really a clever solution to her getting up from the floor problem. She still would rather pull herself up on a piece of furniture most of the time, but increasingly she will do it on her own as well.

Over the weekend her 8th tooth came in, so she has 4 on the top and 4 on the bottom. We still don't have any good photos showing them because she gets pretty shy about them. It's almost as if she thinks they are private. At the same time, she often tries to put her her fingers in our mouths. She doesn't seem to understand the concept of reciprocity.

Her other fun new skill is hugging. If you hold your arms wide open and say "can I have a hug?" she will waddle over and tumble into them. I have to say that I think this is about my favorite skill thus far.

First Haircut!

Yesterday we took Sophia for her first haircut. Her bangs were really hanging in her eyes a lot. Here are before and after pictures.

She was a very good girl during the hair cut, which probably had a lot to do with having a firetruck she could sit in and play with during the experience. We think she looks very different, much more grown up. I guess that's ok since she'll be 10 months old tomorrow!

We fall off the blogosphere

Today I received a kind email from my cousin Cortney checking in on us to be sure that we are all well. I hadn't realized how long it had been since I had posted to our blog. Apparently we had some folks worried! We are all fine. Happily, not much interesting is going on around here. Sophia continues to rampage around the house. The cat's level of terror increases, and the "water line" (as my friend Janet puts it) of what Sophia can reach and affect has moved up a level.

Mostly, we are just reveling in the return to normalcy in the post-holiday period. It's a wonderful thing to have a weekend with no plans, to have an entire week of our normal routine. We may be boring, but we seem to enjoy it.

The most interesting thing that has happened around here the past few weeks has been the arrival of Sophia's toy box that Grandpa Earl made her for Christmas. It needed a few final modifications so it came last weekend. We love that her toys are more contained and she cannot yet open the box and scatter the toys around the room. Sophia is a little concerned about where her toys went. We try to ration their numbers around the room. (I think we're waging a war that we will loose, but it's worth a try.) Sophia is skeptical of this new arrangement, but the box is at the perfect height for her to pull herself up, so she likes it for that reason alone.

The only other interesting thing has been the weather. We had an ice/snow storm (at least an Oregon version of those thing) that shut down schools and a number of roads this week. The bookmobile did not operate one day this week. Happily we did not lose power so I don't have anything to complain about.

We hope all our friends out there are well!

More Family time

The holiday family fun just doesn't end! After my father's party we went home to Salem for one night and then Sunday morning turned around and went back to Battle Ground to spend time with Paul's family. His brother Pat and Pat's girlfriend Meghan are in town visiting from Arizona. This was Sophia's first chance to meet Aunt Meghan, who was a real hit. Sophia was rather more skeptical of Pat. We celebrated New Year's with the family and then Pat and Meghan joined us in Salem for some time with Sophia on her own turf. After lunch today with Earl and Darla we have the house to ourselves and hopefully life can return to some semblance of normal.

In exciting Sophia-news she is working on two new teeth on top and she is a full-fledged walker now. She walks everywhere she wants to go, completely independently. She only needs help getting back up if she falls down. She would prefer not to crawl any more, but will crawl over to something to pull herself up. This morning she started saying "up" as she pulls herself up. As of yesterday she is also able to squat down and pick something up off the floor without falling. Her preferred mode of transportation is holding a toy in each hand. After all, what is the point in going anywhere if you don't take a toy with you? Already I'm exhausted by this new walking skill. Today I spent a couple of hours following her around the family room. I'm just glad she hasn't figured out running yet!