Sledding

Today we took Sophia to Mt. Hood so she could experience the joys of sledding. It is unlikely that she will have many opportunities in her lifetime to sled close to home; happily there are lovely mountains not too far away that we can travel to. After some initial reluctance and fear, she got quite into it. When she saw a slightly older girl riding on her own, she went all by herself, giggling all the way. Getting her back up the hill again was a bit tough, but to of us were able to manage. Grannie & Papa went with us, and we were able to park in a place where Grannie could see most of the fun. Papa only went down the hill once and, despite requests, didn't ride with Sophia. Paul and I had a great time, except for our bottoms getting all wet. That may be why Papa didn't sled more than once. Sophia had snow pants, but none of the rest of us did and it got a bit cold. But we all had fun and there isn't anything much better than a child giggling with delight.

Trained Monkeys

I would like to be able to say that Paul and I set firm limits with Sophia, that she respects our authority and that we tell her no when she crosses the line. These things are all true, to some extent. But from time-to-time I get the feeling that we are just trained monkeys, dancing to her tune and doing whatever she wants. This photo reinforces that feeling.

We've had a good few weeks. Uncle Pat and Aunt Meghan sent Sophia a new CD for her birthday. We've enjoyed dancing to it. When Sophia can't get us up to dance with her, she'll get her giant bear to dance with. It seems like only yesterday that the bear was taller than she was and she couldn't pick it up.

We try to read to Sophia as often as possible. There are times she isn't interested. Far more frequent are the times when she wants to read by herself. I fully expected that some day we would be kicked out of her reading life so she could go faster and be more independent. I did this to my parents and was much happier for it. I did not, however, expect that she would read on her own before she learned how to read! Perhaps she's going to learn to read really early or already has learned, and is hiding it by reading silently to herself and pretending she's looking at the pictures.

One of Sophia's favorite things in the world is being, as we call it, "little miss no-pants." I'm not sure where this title came from, but I suspect that I started it. In the evenings after going potty she will often ask for "no-pants." What is it with little kids that they prefer being naked? Would we all prefer it if we weren't so cold, conditioned to hide our bodies, or out of shape? It reminds me of a story I remember seeing Dana Carvey doing a long time ago about how after 7 pm was 'naked time' at his house and his kids would fling off their clothes and run about with great joy.

Earl and Darla say that Sophia has an "impish" sense of humor and I think that's the perfect word. She certainly finds funny mild disobedience and doing things - tickling, jumping on, putting her hat on - to us. Lately she's been playing with her hat a lot. She's wearing it around the house quite a bit, and keeps trying to get it on our heads. It doesn't fit well which she finds hysterical. One of my favorite things in the world is the sound of her laughing. I am quite willing to be made a fool - or trained monkey - of if she'll laugh.

Great pictures

Sunday afternoon during the post-baptismal festivities a contingent took Sophia to the park. While there, Uncle Barry took some fantastic pictures of Sophia that he's shared with us. Thank you Barry!

Skiing and Baptism

We've had a busy and interesting few weeks. Paul spent a week in Steamboat Springs, Colorado skiing with my father, 2 of his closest friends, and the son-in-law of one of the friends. I think it says something very nice about the relationship between my father and Paul that Dad wanted him to come, and Paul wanted to go. It sounds like they had a great time, although Paul seems a bit chagrined that the "old guys" had so much more stamina than he and Aaron did.

While Paul was gone, Grandpa and Grandma rescued me and Sophia by letting us stay with them 4 days. I had a medical problem that made it difficult to take care of Sophia on my own, and Earl and Darla stepped in. Sophia had a wonderful weekend with them, and they seemed to enjoy it too, but they looked a little tired by the time I was well enough to go home. The rest of mine and Sophia's week without Daddy passed uneventfully.

This past Sunday Sophia was baptised in our church. I am a United Methodist and while we practice infant baptism, with one thing and another, we never got quite around to doing it. So, she's almost two and we finally did it. It was a good chance for our closest family and friends to gather and have some fun. Our good friends, Christina, Peter, Miriam and Grace (who is just a few months old - in Sophia's lap above) came on Saturday. This was the first time Miriam and Sophia have both been old enough to really play together and they seemed to have a great time: there was a lot of running, shrieking, hiding under tables, and only minor bouts of disagreeing over toys. This was also Barry and Jess' first out-of-town trip with Lindsey and they all seemed to weather it quite well.

Sophia seemed to love the chance to dress up and had lots of fun in her fancy new dress. The baptism was quite nice, our pastor, Michael Powell, is a wonderful, kind man who we quite like. In one of those coincidences that seem to happen so often in Methodism, my father knew Michael's wife as a child, and Dad was at camp with Michael and Anni when they met in junior high. So Michael and Anni feel quite like members of the family. The baptism gave us a further opportunity to confuse all about Sophia's name. In baptism, traditionally you give the first and middle names of the child. Sophia's middle names are "Amy" and "Wittmayer." Thus, when we baptized her "Sophia Amy Wittmayer" it probably sounded like Wittmayer is her last name, when it is "Smith" like Paul. But, what's life without some opportunities to confuse those you love?

I'm hoping the next few weeks won't be quite as eventful as the past few. We need some rest!

Sophia gives Lindsey her bunny. Lindsey seems to feel she needs rescuing from Sophia's attention.

Our Duck

I'm pretty sure we applied to adopt a baby. Somehow we ended up with a duck.

My mom came home from the hospital today. She's doing quite well and we're all relieved to have her at home.

Mom update

My mother is still in the hospital, but she's getting much better and should be out this weekend. The infection she's got is called cellulitis and is common to people with diabetes. She's been in quite a bit of pain all week, but things are on the mend. The swelling is gone down, and while on Thursday she had a fever of 103.1, now she doesn't have any fever at all. Thank you all for your prayers and concern.

Fun with friends and a new family member

We spent the weekend at my parent's house at the beach. I love the coast during the winter; it's a great time to sit and watch the wildness of the ocean. It's not so great, however, if you have with you 3 kids 5 and under who have lots of energy and want to get out and play. We made do the best we could, and the kids ran around the house a lot. At one point they got into running around the living room and through one of the bedrooms. They must have made that loop at least 30 times. It was great. I love a tired kid.

As always Sophia loved playing with Alex and Gabe. To her "GabeAlex" is almost one word, and she doesn’t always call them by their correct names, but she does enjoy them. She even did a decent job sharing her Legos with them. Now that's friendship! Alex had the joy/burden of being the big kid and did pretty well at being careful with the smaller kids. He even gave Sophia horse rides. Our time together wasn't long enough but at least we had it.

Sophia and Gabe pile sand on logs.

How many people does it take to play a video game?

Today we went down to Eugene to meet Lindsey. She's quite beautiful and Barry and Jess seem delighted and exhausted. Before she was born there were some concerns that she might have a heart problem. Now it is looking like all is well and we are all so relieved and grateful. During our visit, we were very impressed with how careful Sophia was with the baby. She got to hold Lindsey for a while and I don't think I've ever seen Sophia that still. She's not a still person, but she recognized that she needed to be careful of her new cousin. But she was also happy that she was still getting good attention from Uncle Barry, which I'm sure she feels is her right.

In less happy news, my mother is in the hospital for an infection in her leg. It doesn't seem terribly serious, but she's in pain and has a fever so we're worried about her. Please keep her in your prayers.

New Family Member!

Yesterday, Paul's brother and his wife (Uncle Barry & Aunt Jess) had a baby. Her name is Lindsey Mae and we're all so excited. It sounds like she and Jess are doing well. Hurray!

In other news, we had quite a bit of snow this week. The schools were closed on Monday and Wednesday. This is not typical for Oregon. Sophia enjoyed the snow and got to play in it at home and at day care. Yesterday my father was supposed to go skiing, but he didn't because of the weather. He and my mom came down to be with us instead. My father tried to use Sophia as a pillow and she wasn't too happy about it. Other than that, she seemed to enjoy having them here.