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!

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!