Food wars and other fun

It's been a while since I've posted. Things have been crazy. Last week we didn't have a single free evening. Things have been so nuts that Abby the cat has been lobbying to be shipped to a more sane house and is camping out in a box so she's all ready for the trip.

On Monday the 5th my mother spent the evening with us because my father had a meeting in Salem. As you can see, Sophia is trying to share her teether with Grandma Nancy. Grandma Nancy is always a big hit with Sophia.

On Wednesday my book group had our holiday gathering at my house. I am so lucky to be in this book group they are wonderful women and lots of fun. Every year for December instead of reading a book we bring children's books to read to each other and then donate to a local charity. We also pig out on junk food. It takes some pressure off trying to read a book at this crazy time of year and it's a lot of fun to have stories read to us. This year Sophia got to join us and have the stories read to her. She seemed to enjoy it!

For several days last week and some over the weekend Sophia has been a miss-grumpy-pants for a variety of reasons. She pushed through two new teeth on the top recently. We also discovered today that she has a new tooth on the bottom (bringing her total to 5) and we have no idea when it came through. We have also been having lots of mealtime wars. Almost every meal in her highchair is accompanied by screaming, arm-waving and attempts to push the food away (all on her part). We're not sure what is going on, but it's getting tiresome. She was a pretty good eater until the last several days, but it was comforting to learn today that she is doing this at day-care too so it's not just us! We've been trying to worry less about mess while she's eating (thus the extreme mess-face in the photo) to cut down on the stress but that isn't helping. Hopefully this is a phase she'll grow out of soon!

Christmas begins for Sophia

We have been very busy the past few days having fun and visiting with friends and family. Thursday morning Sophia and I spend some time with my friends Becca and Frank Shields, visiting before they move away to Missouri. Today we attended their going-away party, where I got to see Becca's daughters Trish and Nina. I was good friends with Trish in high school. There aren't too many people around who have known me that long. I try to keep them away from Paul so they don't tell him stories. We had lots of fun at the party, but Sophia hasn't been feeling too well today, so after about an hour, she'd had enough so we left. We spent some down time at my parent's house, and then we went out to dinner with my parents and Aunt Sue and Uncle Jim.

Also exciting the this weekend was that yesterday Sophia and I spent in Portland visiting with our cousins Kathy, Teresa, Elizabeth, Kaylee, Toddice and Great Aunt Char. For six years now, Kathy, who is my mother's first cousin, and her granddaughters Teresa and Elizabeth have come up to Portland and decorated my mother's house for Christmas. My father and I are unbelievably grateful because that was never something we enjoyed doing. While they are in Portland, Kathy's daughter Kaylee and our Aunt Char and cousin Toddice come over 4-generations of Slayton women have lunch together. It's a special holiday tradition and I was glad Sophia could join us for the first time. Now that she is crawling and standing, she also discovered that Grandma's wheelchair is very good for helping her to stand, and Grandma's knees are at a perfect height. Grandma didn't seem to mind at all!

As if all of this wasn't enough for a busy weekend, today we also decorated for Christmas. Sophia went down for a nap, and when she got up, the house looked different. She seemed very excited by the tree and all the decorations, looking at all of it with big smiles. We were careful to put non-breakable ornaments on the bottom of the tree. Also today, she heard The Night Before Christmas for the first time. There are so many traditions to share with her. I'm even singing Christmas songs to her, and for me, that's a big step. I may even come to like Christmas. We'll have to see.

SNOW!!!

For our friends and family in other parts of the country, it will be hard to understand how exciting it is for there to be snow in our part of Oregon. But snow here, especially snow that sticks to the ground and doesn't melt immediately, is very rare. When I was a small child I once asked my mother what the song "White Christmas" was about because I had no frame of reference having never seen a white Christmas. I still think I've only seen 2 or 3 in my life. So, today when it snowed I was very excited and had to bundle up Sophia and me and go outside. She was very puzzled by the snow. She also didn't seem to understand why I was so excited. We pressed a passing stranger into service as a photographer so we could get a photo of Sophia's first snow-fall.

Sophia's first Thanksgiving

This is our fourth year hosting Thanksgiving and the year we have the most to be thankful for. This year we have our very own little girl! What a wonder and joy she is. Attending this year we pretty much had our usual crowd, my parents, Paul's parents, Barry and Jess, our friends Christina, Peter & Miriam, and Derek, Ann Marie, Alex and Gabe. Special guests this year were Paul's grandmother Lael visiting from South Dakota and his sister Amy who lives in Washington, D.C.

We all gorged on wonderful food, enjoyed talking to each other and had the most fun watching and playing with the four children. The first thanksgiving we hosted Alex was the only child, and now there are 4. Who knows how many will attend next year! One of the cutest things that happened was that Gabe has a new special name for Sophia. He calls her "Fofie" which sounds a lot like "Sophie" with the "S" and "ph" replaced by "f." It was so cute that by the end of the day several others were calling her "Fofie." I even found myself doing it after everyone left!

Sophia did not nap enough since she wanted to show off her new impressive skills of crawling, pulling herself up and standing. New today are the skills of kneeling on her knees and of pushing herself up on her hands and feet like a little a-frame structure. She really wants to walk and with the way she is gaining rapid command over her body, it can't be too far off.

We are lucky to be parents this Thanksgiving, and also lucky to have so many friends and family who came to celebrate this holiday with us. Tomorrow we're off to Battle Ground to spend more time with Amy, Lael and Paul's parents, so the party continues!

The Amazing Standing Baby

For quite some time we have been calling Sophia the "amazing standing baby" because she loves standing so much, but now she's pulling herself up, standing on her own, and even gliding along the edge of the couch. From crawling to gliding in 5 days (she started this yesterday). She's growing by leaps and bounds. Tonight she also started clapping. It's very cute. But then we think most things she does are cute.

Poor Abby

See what I meant about our cat being in big trouble now that Sophia can crawl?

Today Sophia chased the cat about 15 feet from the family room, down the hall and into the living room before Abby finally bolted down the hall and into safety. Poor kitty, this isn't going to be a good time for her because Sophia thinks she's the most interesting thing in the house!

Crawling Baby!

We have a crawling baby! Oh boy are we in trouble. Sophia has been close the past few weeks, and taking a few crawl "steps" for about the last week, but last night she took off. Now she can go wherever she wants and is really enjoying this new freedom. The poor cat is staying very far away.

What is an appellate attorney?

Often when I tell someone what Paul does for a living they have no idea what an appellate attorney is. Well, if you want to see him live and in action before Oregon's Supreme Court, click here, http://webcast.chemeketa.edu/webcast/OregonSupremeCourt.htm, and go to the case State v. William Ernest Birchfield, and download the podcast. I will warn you, it takes quite a while to download. His arguments before the Supreme Court are not usually recorded, but the Supreme Court periodically travels to the community colleges of Oregon and Paul happened to be on the docket for a recent visit. The community college recorded the arguments and posted them online. Enjoy!

7 months old and Sophia is still meeting new family members!

Today Paul gave a continuing legal education talk over lunch in Roseburg. As that is a couple of hours away, we seized the opportunity to go to Roseburg a day early and visit our good friends the Simmons family. Sadly, I did not take any pictures with them, so if you need to be reminded of them, you may go to the blog post from Sunday, July 02, 2006.

Today while Paul was off educating lawyers, I went to visit my cousins who live to the northeast of Roseburg. To be technical, and to please my father, I visited my first-cousin-once removed, Kathy, my second cousin Diane, and Diane's sons Luke and Stanley, who are my second-cousins-once-removed. Luke and Stanley are Sophia's third cousins.

Ok, Dad-duties done, we had a fantastic time with them and Sophia took immediately to Kathy, wanting Kathy to hold and play with her. She got upset when Kathy left the room to make a salad. She was also highly charmed by Luke and Stanley who were amazing playing with her. It took longer to warm up to Diane, but once she did, she happily used Diane as a Johnny-jump-up.

After the wonderful time I spent with them today I left asking myself why I don't see them more often. I enjoyed myself so very much and Sophia seemed to as well. It is so lovely when people are more than family, but are also people you truly enjoy being with.

New Sophiemobile

We have joined the ranks of the uncool. Of course, it is entirely possible that we have been uncool for quite some time, but now it is official. Yesterday we bought a minivan, and so now we are truly uncool. We, however, have lots of space for Sophia's gear and all of our friends and family to ride together in comfort, so we're ok with our loss of status.

Also yesterday we met my parents and our friend Joanne (not pictured, unfortunately) for dinner where Grandpa John assisted Sophia in mounting an assault on Grandma Nancy. Grandma Nancy does not seem too upset by this.

Sophia is so close to crawling. This morning she actually did crawl forward about four paces, but hasn't repeated it. Apparently when she sees something she wants enough, she's willing to crawl as her form of transport. She is much more mobile in other ways too. She has learned to scoot while sitting upright on her bottom and that's pretty funny to watch. She also pushes herself backwards - her most frequent mode of transport - and uses the old standby, rolling. For the first time today we had to use the ottoman as a barrier to the kitchen. I think this is a sign of things to come. Pictured to the right you see her going after the toys in her box. We've been letting her choose her own toys lately and she really loves that.

She also is frequently interested in helping feed herself. When she is getting grumpy about eating we let her help. But we are not yet courageous enough to let her eat without us holding the end of the spoon. That mess is coming soon!

Happy Halloween!

Sophia couldn't decide if she wanted to be a penguin or a pumpkin, so she was both. She was a penguin to visit mine and Paul's works, and pumpkin to visit our neighbor's house for her one stop of actual trick-or-treating.

Weekend Round-up

This weekend we saw lots of people. Friday night we had company for dinner, the Ivins family who watched Sophia before her regular day-care started. It was fun to see them and they are such nice people. Their little girl, Talia, worked pretty hard bringing Sophia toys and keeping up a running commentary on lots of things. Rachel, who is a kindergarten teacher, even read to the girls some. Sophia was duly impressed by this much more professional reading-outloud standard.

Saturday Paul and Sophia went to Battle Ground to visit Grandma Darla and Grandpa Earl and watch a fairly tragic Husker game. At least they had Sophia to keep them happy. I had to work.

Tonight we had dinner with my parents. As usual, they were charmed by Sophia. Sophia in turn seemed to enjoy them. She was especially chatty, making lots of sounds. When she got close to Grandma Nancy she kept petting her arm and rubbing her face on her. I think she liked the way Grandma's sweater felt, but maybe she just wanted to snuggle with Grandma, you never know.

Finally I'm just including a few cute pictures of Sophia, because that's mostly why people come to the blog.

Halloween Card

Today Sophia received a card from Aunt Sue.
What does she do with a card?

Oh yes, it goes in the mouth. (Don't worry. I didn't actually let her chew on the card.)

Tantrums and New Hats

Yesterday we ran errands and hung out around the house. It was exactly what we needed after a few busy days.







Paul tried to teach Sophia to crawl. It didn't work. He continues to try.









Then she threw a massive tantrum when we fed her dinner.












Today she and I have been running errands and spending time just the two of us (with the exception of having lunch with Paul). This evening Paul took her for a walk and since it's chilly, she had to wear her new hat. I think it's a cute hat, so I took a picture.