Mail Call

In our Saturday mail we received a very misplaced letter. It is addressed to someone who lives in "Hahm, Wisc 54632." As far as I can tell with a very cursory check online, Hahm, Wisconsin does not exist and the area code 54632 belongs to Genoa. The addressee shares our house number, which is all I can figure about how it ended up in our box. We don't even have the same name. The letter was mailed from Minnesota. It was heading from Minnesota to Wisconsin and took a very wrong turn to Oregon. I could understand getting a piece of mail from one of our neighbors. This happens from time-to-time. But for this letter to get to us required repeated mistakes from an impressive variety of postal employees. It almost makes me want to save it as a souvenir. But It appears to be a Christmas card and Mr. Huther probably wants his mail.

Our weekend

We saw some of our family this weekend. We hadn't seen any of Sophia's grandparents for a few weeks, and they weren't going to let us get away with that for much longer! We had dinner with my parents last night, and brunch with Uncle Barry and Aunt Jess this morning. We scheduled Paul's parents for next weekend so we didn't overload ourselves. As always, we had a nice time with all. It was a special treat to get to see Jess and Barry's new home which they are slowly but surely making their own. It is really lovely and Sophia thoroughly enjoyed exploring it.

Sophia has finally taken an active interest in books. I was a bit worried for a while, but figured she'd catch on eventually. When we were in the home study process for adoption the representative from the adoption agency actually pushed me on this point, wanting to be sure that I'd be ok if a child of mine didn't like to read. I told her that as long as the child had some hobby that was good for her and she enjoyed, I'd support it. But to see her happily bringing us books to read is a joy. Of course, it only took her a week to move into the phase of bringing us the same book to read over-and-over, but periodically we hide them and read others, so that's ok. Her current favorites are Doggies, Diving for Numbers in Hawaii, and Mog in the Garden.

Sophia continues to enjoy her adventures in eating. This morning at brunch she ate a piece and-a-half of toast (she loves toast and would be on an all-toast diet if we'd let her). Tonight for dinner she had pork chops, cut into small pieces of course. They were an enormous hit. Last night at dinner she had cod which she also quite likes. Unfortunately, nothing we can do can get her to eat fruit. Even fruit she was eating for a while, like bananas, are no longer acceptable to her. Sometimes she's just an odd kid. But we love her and think she's lot of fun!

Weekend at the Beach

Every winter we go to the beach with our friends the Simmons family. I am not sure if this is our 4 or 5 trip together, but it is nice to have such traditions with friends who have become family. Over time, we have added numbers to our ranks, their sons Alex and Gabe, and this year, Sophia! We were there together this year for President's Day weekend which gave us a nice chance to stay 3 days.

It was a wonderful time together, although not exactly restful. 3 children under the age of 5 are not quiet or calm, but they are a lot of fun. Gabe is almost exactly a year older than Sophia and the two of them played fairly well together, except for the frequent toy theft. She found him quite fascinating and followed him around a lot. Alex at almost 5 was a little left out, but he had us grown-ups to entertain him, and we did our best.

I love winter on the Oregon coast. The ocean is very rough and stormy and the tides are quite high. It's great fun to sit and watch the ocean. This, however, is not very conducive to kid-fun as they want to get out and do something active. The weather and tides were not helpful to a lot of playing on the beach, but we did our best. We also took them on a hike at Oswald West State Park, to the Tillamook Cheese Factory and to the tide pools. Although we were pretty tired at the end of the weekend, it was a great time and I'm looking forward to next year.

Sophia also achieved a milestone this weekend: the end of baby food. Her level of frustration with mushed-up food has become pretty high and meals have become quite a war. She is clearly ready to feed herself, although not yet with a spoon, and eat regular food. So, we've started feeding her cut-up portions of what we're eating and suddenly she's having fun at meals again. Over the weekend we added ground beef and turkey, bell peppers, french fries, fish, saltines crackers, and (her favorite) cheese to her diet. Cheese seemed an especially appropriate thing to add to her diet when we were in the land of Tillamook Cheese. Plus when at the factory we bought cheese curds, which have a lovely mild flavor, and she adores. She is a much happier baby and dinner involves a lot less wining which is good for all of us.

Joy of Spaghetti

Tonight for the first time we cut up our dinner into small pieces and gave it to Sophia to eat. We were having pasta, so to prevent stains on her clothing, we stripped her down to her diaper first. She was as happy eating as we have seen her in months and made a colossal mess. I'm not entirely sure how she managed to get pasta in her hair, but she didn't mind at all. We're going to have to do more of this because it was a lot more fun for us too.

New Shoes!

Now that Sophia is walking outside a lot, we need to get her good outdoor shoes. I'm not sure that we have so far done that (it was more complicated than I thought it would be) but tonight she and I went to Target to look at shoes. We came home with two pairs that hopefully won't soak rain right through to her socks. She very proudly carried them around the house until it was time for her bath. Either she was proud of her new shoes, or she thought they were toys; she did try to put them in the bucket with her blocks.

Visit from Jenni

Sunday our very good friend Jenni, who I have known since the first grade and Paul since collage, she is the person who introduced me and Paul, came to visit and meet Sophia for the first time. Jenni and her husband Steve (who sadly was not with her) live in Luxembourg, so we don't get to see them much. Sophia is developing some stranger anxiety, so it took her a while to warm up to Jenni, but she did eventually. Before lunch we went downtown to the carousel and Sophia, Jenni and Paul went for a ride. Sophia seemed to enjoy it, although she doesn't have any big grins on her face. It's all a little overwhelming for her. We had a lovely visit with Jenni and wish we got to see her more often.

In other Sophia news, her fun new game is running (or at least walking very fast), yelling and smacking into furniture and cabinets. She really is doing this on purpose because even when she does it into hard things she doesn't go hard enough to hurt herself. She was going around doing this for about a half an hour last night and it's very silly.

Upside down reading

Last night we gave Sophia a book to look at in her highchair. Lately she has really shown interest in books (although she still wants to chew them). She was turning the pages and staring at the pictures with great intent. The problem? She had the book upside down!

Also yesterday evening she was playing with a balloon and it slipped out of her hands. Luckily she was inside so it didn't go far. Paul took this very funny photo of her straining to reach the string.

New photos

I hate to post when nothing much is going on, but then you all just come for the baby pictures, so I wouldn't want to disappoint you! I took these photos yesterday when Sophia was running around the house. Anything anyone else has she wants to take away, including the camera, so I got a rather extreme close-up. I thought it was funny, so it's here too. She's also playing a lot more with facial expressions, so you'll see that in one of the photos.

Last week someone said to me that she'll be 1 "next month." I keep thinking of her as 10 months old, so I had to stop and think about that for a while, but it's true. She is ten months and 2 weeks now, but she will be 1 year old in March, which is next month. That thought just slammed into me like a freight train. A year ago this past Friday was when we first found out that her birthmother had selected us to parent her baby and it's amazing what has happened in that year, so many ups and downs (more ups than downs). What a ride it's been!