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!

Happy Birthday John!

My father's birthday was December 27th. He is now 60. To celebrate this milestone, I threw him a party with 51 of his closest friends and family. About 60 people were invited, so 51 is a pretty good turn-out, especially this time of year. Even my father's cat, Bob, came out to enjoy the party. We had a lovely time, lots of good food, and hopefully my father ended the evening knowing how fond of him people are.

In addition, I asked people to send me written stories about him which I compiled into a book for him. He loved it and it was also a big hit at the party. One of the great things about making the book was learning all sorts of new dirt about him, but also learning how many ways he has touched people over the years.

The party was a lot of work, but it was significantly lessened by the amazing help of my friends Sonja and Liz who came and were our staff for the evening. Most of my parent's friends thought I had hired them! I am just floored to have friends who would do that for me. It's a humbling thing and they worked really hard to make it a nice party. All the friends who came also made it a nice evening, and Sophia was quite the hit for the hour that she was there. Paul's parents took her home and put her to bed after about an hour.

Sometimes it is just brought home to you how much love and support surrounds you: friends who will help throw a party for someone they don't even know, people who will celebrate the birthday of a well-loved friend, and family who pull together in times of crisis. It is just humbling to be part of a network of such amazing people.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! This is the first of two Christmas posts as we have so many pictures to share. Please scroll down for more pictures.

We are home and happy to be here. Christmas and visiting family is great, but coming home is wonderful too. Many people have been saying to us how wonderful it is to be celebrating our first Christmas with Sophia, and it is. Every once in a while she’ll look at the tree or a toy and get an expression on her face of pure joy. When I compare this Christmas to where we were a year ago, every day is full of joy. A year ago we were waiting for a birthmom to pick us and carrying our cell phones everwhere in case we were contacted. It was sad and stressful. This year we have an amazing, growing little girl.

But the season is also full of stress (of course this is not a problem unique to people with 9-month-olds). Sophia is quickly overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle. Present opening absolutely wiped her out. In part this was because we had to hold her the entire time. With all the wrapping paper and ribbons on the floor it wasn’t safe for her to crawl around (since she puts everything into her mouth, it's a choking hazard) and she was quickly frustrated by not being allowed to move. But also the noise and craziness was highly stimulating for her. There were also times when a new toy would scare her. You have this image of a child on her first Christmas tearing into presents with absolute glee. But it’s not realistic. That’s a vision of an older child. We had to carefully regulate how much we exposed Sophia to all of that. We removed her from present opening to a nap at both Paul’s family’s house and my family’s house. It’s not as exciting, but involves a lot less angry baby.

But enough complaining. As expected, Sophia got lots of wonderful gifts and she was really happy with them. She got 3 toys she can push and walk with and LOVED that with tremendous enthusiasim. She hasn’t yet learned course correction so she ran into walls and furniture and got stuck a lot, but she still loved it.

Saturday afternoon as soon as I was off work we went to Portland and spent the night with my parents. Sunday morning after Sophia’s morning nap we went to Battle Ground to spend the day with Paul’s parents and Barry and Jess. Aunt Amy and her partner Karen were there in absentia by sending gifts. The Smith family tradition is to open presents Christmas Eve and my family’s tradition is to do it Christmas morning, so we’re able to accommodate everyone. This morning with my parents we had Christmas stockings, our traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham and cinnamon rolls and then after Sophia went down for her nap we opened our presents. Many lovely gifts were given and received with both families. As expected Sophia made out like a bandit.

This afternoon we visited my grandmothers in the nursing home. In the late afternoon Sophia continued to impress by holding a bottle on her own for their first time. We left in the late afternoon and came home. Now to find places for all the wonderful presents. What a wonderful Christmas this was, if tiring and stressful at times.

More Christmas pictures

Playing with uncle Barry is always a hit.



I bet you can't guess what this present is!
It's for the garden Barry is planning at his new house.

Sophia enjoys her toys and swinging with Daddy.











Grandpa John got a tie with lots of little pictures of Sophia on it.



Sophia holding her own bottle.

9 months old!

Yesterday Sophia was nine months old and she is WALKING! Boy are we in trouble. She is taking up to 5 steps unaided and then leaning forward to reach something a few feet away and going ker-plunk. (Perhaps she has issues with depth perception.) She has been walking for about 5 days now and it's very exciting. When she wants to get someplace with speed, however, she still prefers to crawl.

Last night we opened our Christmas presents to each other, not seeing the point in hauling them to Portland where we will spent the next few days. Sophia seems to like her bear hand puppet and Leapfrog Learning Table with all sorts of activities and music she can play. Mostly she wanted to eat the bows but we didn't let her.

Today Paul is helping Barry & Jess move into their new house. Sophia is with Grandma Darla. This evening we'll go to Grandma Nancy's and Grandpa John's and spend the next two nights at their house going back and forth to Earl and Darla's so we can celebrate with everyone.

Happy Christmas everyone!