New Toy!

Our cousins Lisa, Roya & Layla gave Sophia this lovely top for her birthday. Monday I was making it spin and she took it away from me and took over. I was surprised that she was able to make it work but she did a pretty good job. It was a really good present and Sophia loves it.

Also for your entrainment is this photo of a post-spaghetti Sophia. Doesn't she look like she's been enjoying herself?

Sophia's birthday Party

This is the first of two posts. Please scroll down to see pictures of Sophia's birthday cake and it's consumption.

Sophia's birthday party was a big hit and a good time was had by all (or at least, all who write this blog). 14 friends and family members attended and Sophia made out like a bandit in the present department. The cake, made by my friend Santos was wonderful and featured Sophia's favorite things, ducks. Photos of the cake and Sophia's tremendous enjoyment of it are in the second post below.

Today is Aunt Jess' birthday and our anniversary (#7!) and we shared those celebrations with Sophia, but the party was really all about our little girl, who loved the attention, the food and the presents.

I do want to single out one special present sent all the way from Washington D.C. that came from Sophia's Aunt Amy. Apparently Amy is concerned about the music we are inflicting upon Sophia so she made Sophia a compilation CD to rectify that problem. It is called "A Musical Intervention for Sophia, Volume 1, Because there's no excuse for bad taste." It includes music by Catie Curtis, Jack Johnson, India Arie, Brahmas and others. In the accompanying letter Amy writes:

If you lived in DC (or I lived in Oregon), you would no doubt have been carted off of dozens of rehearsals and concerts and hopefully would be exposed to more interesting music than what your parents can provide. Perhaps your first word would have been “harpsichord” rather than “duck.” There’s really no way of knowing. Don’t despair! I’ve complied a CD of a variety of music for your listening
enjoyment!

There are thousands of styles of music out there, form classical to hip-hop. I
have my own preferences, of course, but ultimately there are only 2 major
categories:
1) Good
2) Bad

My favorite part is track #1 which is a rendition of the Happy Birthday song which is a Sophia-specific version. My original assumption was that this was custom produced for Sophia. Amy updated us (3-27) that you can find name-specific versions of Happy Birthday on Itunes. But it still is pretty special. It really touches me that Amy would go to the effort of trying to overcome our music education deficits, so I will try not to be insulted by her disparaging our musical taste! I would much prefer to concentrate on her implied offer of free babysitting ("carted off to dozens of rehearsals" sounds like free babysitting to me!)

Other presents were also special and included a ladybug ball, new clothes, blocks, books and a Sophia-sized picnic table. All should be fun and well-used! Such loving friends and family Sophia has.

Sophia's Birthday Party Continued

1 year old!

Today Sophia is one year old! We tried to give her some birthday hoopla despite her not really knowing the difference between this and other days. Her first real present was the turning around of her car seat. Paul did this last night so it would be all ready for her morning trip. She seemed quite happy about her new view on the world and we're hoping that it will make car rides more fun.

We took cupcakes to daycare for her to share with the other kids. Apparently Sophia had a hard time with the concept of sharing. She was served her cupcake first and eat it as fast as possible. Then she attempted to raid the other kid's food. She finally succeeded when one girl left the table with a cupcake unfinished.

After she got home she had some quality playtime with Daddy, and after I got home we read some books and let her have half another cupcake. We also gave her a birthday present, a ball. It was a bit hit.

After a bath and her night-time routine, she's in bed. It was a wonderful birthday and we are so lucky and grateful to have her in our lives. She is the best thing to have ever happened to us and we can't believe that a year ago today she was born.

Pre-birthday Fun

Sophia's birthday present from Mommy and Daddy (other than finally getting to turn around in her carseat which we're looking forward to) is a red wagon. We bought it this weekend and Sunday she and Paul put it together. Sophia's part was mostly about trying to push it before there were wheels and then stealing all the parts. She enjoyed it. She had a lot more fun when it was all done and we took her for her first ride.

Sunday was also her first introduction to the glories of mashed potatos, one of the world's great foods. We feed her the classic dish of mashed potatoes and chicken and she loved every bit of it. We also discovered last night that while she hates most vegetables, she loves broccoli, even igorning her other food to eat the brocoli. It's just another example of her being a strange kid.

We're all looking forward to the big birthday bash just a few days away. We can't believe she'll be one on Thursday!

St. James Day--2007

Today is St. James Day! More importantly it is Sophia's first St. James Day. For those of you who don't know all about St. James Day, please visit the office web site of St. James Day at www.stjamesday.com. In short, St. James Day is a holiday that Paul and his good friend Derek created in 2001 to celebrate the start of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Each year, on the first Friday of the NCAA Tournament, Paul and Derek (and their children and other invited guests) get together to watch basketball, grill kielbalsa, curse their brackets, and have a great time. This year, Sophia joined in the fun.

This year, we had a great turnout with 13 celebrants at various points in the day (some people have yet to get into the full spirit of the holiday and don't yet take the full day off...we're working on them). At the start of the day, Grandpa John read stories of great basketball games of the past to Sophia, and Derek's kids, Alex and Gabe.

Later in the day, Bryn--who was home recovering from a bad headache--also shared in the St. James Day revelry by reading a story to Sophia and Gabe about the mighty Oregon Ducks basketball team. (Well, at least the book was about ducks, if not the mighty Ducks).

As the day wore on, and as our favorite teams (Kansas for Derek and Oregon for Paul) clinched their first round victories, Sophia and Gabe decided to share an afternoon snack.

All in all, it was a great St. James Day. This is the 7th St. James Day. And, this is the 6th time Derek and Paul have gotten together at one another's houses for the festivities (last year, Derek had to be in Kansas, and Paul and Bryn were nervously awaiting Sophia's arrival, so St. James Day festivities were a bit more subdued). We are looking forward to the rest of the NCAA Tournament, and I will post more St. James Day pictures when I get them from Derek.

Happy St. James Day everyone!

Door Opening

For quite a while Sophia has been playing with doors, opening and closing them and acting quite delighted with her ability. Tonight for the first time she used the door knob to unlatch a door and let herself out of a room. I think it helps her that the handles on our doors are ADA-style levers and not traditional knobs.

I must admit that my initial reaction to this skill was to utter an expletive thinking of how much harder it will be to limit her access to the house. But, she seemed very proud of herself and I must reconcile myself to her growing independence and abilities. Plus, now we won't have to worry about her screaming when she accidentally shuts herself in a room.

As Paul put it, she has now officially advanced beyond the cat; Abby can't open doors.

Sophia in the box

We could buy Sophia a fancy playhouse and spend a few hundred dollars. But why would we, when I can get large cardboard boxes for free from work and they’re just as fun?

Talking

Sophia is increasingly vocal. Most of what she does is babble nonsense, completely typical of her age. But from time to time she says things that are inteligle and she has a small stock of actual words, or at least specific sounds that she only uses for particlar objects. These include: duck (her favorite) which comes out more like "du," "Aba" for Abby our cat, Dada of course, shoe, buckle (no, I'm not kidding about his one, it doesn't come out quite right, but it is definitely buckle, and she uses it when we are buckling her in her carseat), no, ya, uh-oh, and woah. Please note that "mama" is nowhere on that list. A few months ago she said it quite a lot, now she never says it. I try not to be insulted.

This past weekend we had grand plans to meet Paul's parents for lunch in between our two houses and then do some shopping at a mall. Sophia's plans, however, included a massive attach of diareah on the way up to Portland that managed to spread from her armpits to her knees. We noticed a foul odor on the drive up and pulled off the road, luckily we were taking the senic route, to change her diaper, and discovered the biggest mess we have had in months. We quickly exhausted all our wipes, and had a squirmy, naked, hysterical baby getting poop all over the floor of the van. It was an unbelievable mess. We had back-up clothes with us, but we were unable to entirely clean her up and everything else was a mess too. So, we called Paul's parents and turned around, putting her straigt into the tub as soon as we got home. Paul's parents joined us soon after and we had lunch at our house, then took Sophia to the carousel and finally out to desert. It eneded up being a great day, but what a mess! I guess that's what we get for slacking off in the supplies we carry with us. It has been so long since we've needed much, that I've gotten a bit lax, so Sophia provided a big, messy reminder of why the Boy Scout motto is so important.