New job, new tricks

Well, I started a new job and everything else about it so far is great: better pay, better benefits, good co-workers, and every other Friday off.

Though it has meant Sophia's days at daycare are longer than before. At my previous job I has some flexibility in that I could arrive at 9 a.m. or later. In my new job, I start at 8 a.m. And since Anthony starts his day at 8 a.m., too, this means Sophia is at daycare from about 7:45 a.m. until 5:15 p.m. 

I hate that she's at daycare for more than 9 hours a day. But it helps knowing that we have good jobs to support our family, and that Sophia is happy at her new daycare. She's still adjusting to getting dropped off at daycare. Anthony said she was upset several days when he left the room, but last week she wasn't. When we pick her up she is happy and very talkative. 

As for some Sophia updates: She is officially a walker now.

I can't remember the last time I saw her crawl to get from one room to another. It's all about walking now. She starting taking more than 5-10 steps at the end of March, and she seems to enjoy walking so much. It's like she's amazed at this new trick, and proud of herself for being able to accomplish this new milestone. Sometimes she'll just walk and exaggerate her steps by doing a sort of high step or just looking at her feet. Other times she will try to challenge herself by picking up something -- or several things -- to carry while she walks.

Besides walking she has become quite the talker. She has about 15-20 words, some of which include dog, outside, cup, hot, hair, cheese, and of course dada. And, she is frequently starting to pick a word out of a conversation with her and repeat it, or if you ask her to say a particular word she will repeat it or try to. She did this the past few days with the words green, again, elbow, and octopus. Elbow sounded like ello, and octopus was "octa."

She knows all the major body parts on her face. And she knows some of the sounds vehicles or animals make. Sophia you amaze us every day, and we know there is so much more to come.

Silly baby tricks

Sophia's new trick: Purposely dropping her sippy cup on the floor.

She only does this when she's sitting in the high chair but she does it after each sip she takes.

We have been showing her how to place the cup on the tray when she's done. But she only smiles and then  extends the cup over the side of the high chair. She sends it over the left side of the chair, over the right side and even sends it over the back of the chair by extending her arm up over her head.

It's become a game she never get tired of playing, though we are tired. But I hate to say this game of hers also make me laugh quite frequently; so much so I try to hide it so as not to encourage her.

But I think she most definitely knows she's a little comedian.

What a smart girl

When we were playing for bedtime tonight, I asked Sophia "Do you want Daddy or Mommy to rock you to sleep?"

She stopped what she was doing, crawled to the other side of the room where her favorite blanket was on the floor and put her head on it. Then she sat up and held the blanket up to us.

Amazing how much she understands at this age.

The other night when she wouldn't try her real green beans I said, "Sophia I promise you, you like the real green beans. You've had them before and they're just like these mushy green beans."

Then I sang the song we made up the first time she ate pureed green beans: Green beans, beans that are green. Green beans, beans that are green.

She smiled and then began to eat her green beans.

Poor little baby

The past week has been a rough one for Sophia. She's getting three teeth at the same time: two beside her bottom teeth and a bottom molar.

With that, of course, has come a fever, a runny noise and a cough. The past couple nights she has woken up at least once in the middle of the night. But last night was the worst.

Every hour, or less, she would wake up because her cough was bothering her so much. And there was nothing that seemed to be helping.

Not the humidifier, not an elevated crib mattress, she didn't want much to do with any milk, juice or water, and rocking her was only a temporary solution. At one point she was kicking, screaming, and flailing her body around so violently that we joked at one point we needed to call in an exorcist.

She had no fever. And there was anything serious enough about her cough or the way she was feeling that we needed to go to the hospital.

It was simply a combination of being in pain from teething, sick, overtired and restless that made her so irritated.

During one of her middle of the night awakenings we were at a loss of what else we could do to calm her down. I got up from the rocking chair, turned on the light and reached for the box of Cheerios on top of the fridge.

"Do you want some Cheerios," I asked.

"Yes," Sophia answered.

We had found an answer. We put her in the high chair, poured some Cheerios on her tray and at 1 a.m. she feasted on some Cheerios.

It's Purplicious!

The last time we visited the library we checked out  a book called "Purplicious" for Sophia among several other books.

Every time Sophia sees this book she has to have it read to her immediately. She'll see the book, crawl over to it quickly and then look at one of us to read it to her.

She sits still for the entire book, I think because it has more colorful illustrations than any other book we've read to her.

But the best part of reading the book to her is how she kicks her legs in excitement when you near the end of the book. The last page says "Not just pretty ... It's purplicious" and each time we read that line we over exaggerate it with a Hooray! tone of voice.

Sophia loves it. She smiles, claps hands and almost always wants us to read the book again.

One year checkup

On Sophia's first visit to the pediatrician, I was still sore from the C-section, still on maternity leave and still so very new to parenting.

Today, I could carry Sophia into the office myself, had to return to work after her appointment and have a pretty good hang of this parenting thing.

I remember during Sophia's very first visit talking with a mom in the waiting room. She was there for her daughter's one year well check. The mom commented on Sophia, who was sleeping away in the infant carrier, and how she remembered her daughter's newborn days.

I looked at her daughter walking around the room thinking age 1 and walking seemed so far away.

But it wasn't.

Her checkup today revealed she's still as happy and healthy as the day she was born.

Sophia's stats at 1 year old: 29 inches long and 21.13 pounds. Her birth stats: 20 inches and 8 pound, 1 ounce.

And she's doing a lot more since those first days which were mainly sleep, eat and poop. She's pointing, standing, still thinking about walking, talking, giggling, smiling and loving us in every way.

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday to our sweet Sophia.

I'm so glad we took this week off to spend with you in celebration of your birthday. We've done a little something special with each day this week: the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa on Saturday, shopping with your birthday money Sunday, the airport to pick up Grandpa on Monday, the library on Tuesday and today we continued the fun at the Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa.

The museum had plenty of play areas including a pretend grocery store, garden, port and vet clinic and you loved it all. You pushed the tugboats in the water while wearing an oversized yellow raincoat. You played in the garden with potatoes, carrots and lettuce, which you desperately wanted to eat.

At the vet clinic, you enjoyed the stethoscope and stuffed animals. We did a little pretend grocery shopping and pushed you around in the tot sized cart, and you played with building blocks and toy cars at the engineer shop.

You did it all and enjoyed it all.

Later in the afternoon we helped you open presents.

You were not too interested in your presents but very much interested in cake. When we sang Happy Birthday to you, you smiled at us as though you knew it was your special day that included cake.

You were dainty about tasting your cake at first, taking icing off of it one finger at a time. But eventually you were grabbing clumps of icing and then it was time to take a break and then a bath.