No!

As Sophia develops her sense of self, and command of language, we are hearing "no" from her more often. She's no longer just babbling it, but using it as a response to questions or commands. "Sophia come here" is increasingly being answered with "no" and a dart in the opposite direction while giggling. I know that every child and every parent goes through this, but it's not a lot of fun. Oh well, I guess I wouldn't want her to grow up to be a push-over. (I'm sure my parents are reading this and are thinking that I'm finally getting what I deserve. It's a good thing we don't allow comments on this blog!)

Despite my needing to work yesterday, we did manage to squeeze some fun into the weekend. This weekend Sophia learned she can bounce on the couch. It was lots of fun and prompted much giggling. Today Uncle Barry and Aunt Jess came up for the afternoon and we went to a park and then had dinner together. Uncle Barry wore the Sophia backpack, commenting that even at 26.4 lbs, she weighs less than he carries when climbing or hiking. We're hoping this was the first of many outings Sophia will take with her aunt and uncle. They're pretty special and always a big hit with Sophia.

Development of language

I know, we've fallen off the blogosphere again. I'm sorry. A few weeks ago Sophia had double ear infections, and those were followed by me having a bad migraine for several days, so I haven't been too inspired to post for a while. Tonight I figured I should before I start getting "concerned" emails from those of you who just want new pictures of Sophia.

Sophia's most interesting developments of the past few weeks have been in the realm of language, and that's pretty hard to capture on film. She's much more verbal than she was a month ago, even if most of it is nonsense, and she has a real sense that what she is saying should be communicating something to us. She can become very angry and frustrated when we don't understand what she is babbling. These are the times I think we should have taught her baby sign language. But her verbal capabilities are advancing, if not as fast as her comprehension. Every day it seems she is able to know what we mean by saying the name of an object. "Sophia, bring Mama the bear," was tonight's and she brought me the bear. Last night she did a star and a triangle before she got bored with the game we try not to call "fetch." In addition she has figured out her first body part: toes! We ask her where her toes are, and she points to them. She also will point to them on her own and say "toes."

The other funny thing she is doing is making animal sounds. "What does a cow say?" always elicits mooing, and roaring for the question of what a lion says. She only has lion and cow down so far, but she can recognize them in photos and make the appropriate sounds. We continue to work on other animals more relevant to a child who lives in suburbia.

Tomorrow is Paul's birthday and yesterday Sophia got the party started by bringing Daddy a balloon (which she calls "ball") and playing with it herself. She also stole my coat right out of my hands yesterday and tried to put it on. We thought that was too funny to miss, so we put the coat on her and made her take pictures. You can practically see her thinking, "I'll never do that again!"

So life continues unabated at the Paul-Bryn-Sophia house.

New Portraits

Monday I took Sophia for 1-year-old portraits. Although we don't have the physical pictures yet, due to the miracles of technology, we already have the digital images and I'm able to share some of the best ones with you (a few of which I didn't even buy).

Post-Easter Fun

The Easter fun kept coming on Monday our friends Christina and Miriam came for a visit. Many Easters in the past they, along with husband/father Peter, have celebrated Easter with us, at least in the afternoon. But last summer they moved an hour further away and now it's too far to get to Salem on Easter. So, Miriam and Christina came for a visit on Monday. We also took the girls for pictures. I think they turned out well; I'll post when we have them.

The visit with Miriam, and with Gabe over the weekend certainly brought home to us the difference between 2 and 1. Gabe and Miriam are much more steady on their feet, have a greater command of language, and a real sense of shared play that Sophia does not yet have. While Miriam and Sophia are about the same size physically, that year of intellectual and emotional growth does a lot for a kid! I think it was a little frustrating for Miriam that Sophia wouldn't really play with her, but eventually Sophia will get there.

Second Easter

This is Sophia's first holiday that we are celebrating for the second time. We have now started round that part of the year that she experienced last year as an infant. Of course, it's all a lot more fun now that she can participate! This year we returned to our Easter tradition of hosting a casual celebration at our house. But we started the party off on Saturday with the arrival of our Roseburg "family" who spent the night. This morning we all went to church together. Then mid-afternoon, two sets of grandparents and one set of aunt and uncle came to enjoy the day together.

The three little kids, Sophia, Alex and Gabe had a great deal of fun running around together, and we're especially grateful to Gabe and Alex for wearing Sophia out so effectively. As usual, we ate good food, read books to the kids, talked about all sorts of things including current events and the problems of retirement and health insurance, and the legal system (with 5 lawyers in the room, that one couldn't be helped) and had lots of fun. Strangely, my father showed up wearing brand-new cowboy boots and tried to pass them off as "orthopedic" but no one was buying it. The kids made out like bandits with Easter baskets. Happily, Sophia's had no candy in it and she was just as happy. It appeared that a good time was had by all.

Happy Easter everyone!

We ditch the kid!

This weekend Paul and I got away for some much-needed time alone. Paul planned a wonderful weekend away and I did not know where we were going. He took us to the Channel House in Depoe Bay, a town on Oregon's Coast. It was a lovely hotel where each room had jacuzzis on the balcony and included amazing breakfasts with home-made pasteries. We slept-in, relaxed, wandered around the town, read, played games, and talked about Sophia only part of the time! We also noticed that we take a lot fewer pictures when she's not around. I've included one very bad one I took of him in our room and one of the view from our room.

Sophia, the lucky girl, got to spend the weekend at our house with Grandma Darla and Grandpa Earl getting spoiled like crazy. She got to play at the park, ride Salem’s Carousel, and Grandma even bought her fancy, sparkly new tennis shoes. As you might guess, they took a lot more pictures this weekend than we did, and I've included some of theirs.

As a gift, we brought Sophia a sand-bucket. She's not quite yet up to playing on the beach, but she likes to take things out and put things in containers so a bucket was a good gift. As we discovered when we got home, it also made a good drum, hat and toy. She had great fun when Darla and I put it on our heads and she would bend down to peak up under the edge to see our eyes.

For all of us it was a wonderful weekend and it worked out well for all. Sophia got spoiled. Grandma Darla and Grandpa Earl got to spend time with Sophia and we got time alone. A win-win-win!