Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!
This is Sophie's 3rd Christmas. Each one is better than the last. This year she was even more excited about opening her presents. She would open each one, exclaim what it was and hug it. Then she would take her wrapping paper and throw it away in the box of trash. How polite and helpful of her! She loved getting to see all of her family and spending time with each of them.
I can't wait until next Christmas to see both of my girls open their gifts!

28 Months

This month has sped by, though they all have been lately so I shouldn't be surprised.



•  Sophie continues to grow which makes me so happy. Today after getting dirty, I changed her into a pair of 9 month comfy pants and a 6-9 month shirt. Both fit her well last month. Today though, the pants were just a smidgen too short and the shirt was both too short and tight. Great problems to have! Storing away her too small clothes are on my list of things to do over Christmas break. (Her pants in the above picture need to be pulled down some. They actually fit length wise much better than how they look. That is how a lot of the 'too small' pants look on her now though.)
• Potty training is coming along. After the fiasco with potty training a few months ago, we decided to let Sophie take charge of potty time. At least once every day she lets us know that she wants to go potty. Sometimes she takes matters into her own hands by taking off her pants and diaper before informing us that it is time to go potty. It is pretty comical. One day after she took off her pants and diaper, I decided to try her in underwear to see how she would do. She lasted about 5 minutes before peeing her pants. She didn't seem bothered by it at all, so I know we still have a lot of work ahead of us. I am fine with taking it at her pace though. She has always done things on her own time line (eating, crawling, walking, etc), so I don't expect this to be any different. I'm just proud of the progress she has made so far.
• We aren't having much luck getting rid of Sophie's pacifiers. She just isn't ready to give them up. I tried cutting a small piece off of one in hopes that she would be dissatisfied and just want rid of it. Instead she went on about how it was broken and cried a bunch when we tried to put her to sleep. We broke down and gave her a different one so she would actually go to sleep. Things keep happening to her pacifiers though (lost, purposely broken again, etc) and now she is down to her last two. We will see how long they last. Once they are gone, they are gone. We won't buy her anymore. 
• Sophie is now sleeping in her toddler bed. We realized that changing her bed and room was probably too much of a change for her. So, we switched the toddler bed into her room, and put the crib in the spare room (now officially Josie's room). She has slept in it each night and for naps each time. When she wakes up, she doesn't get out of bed (thank goodness!). Instead she calls for me and waits for me to come into her room. She usually announces, "I awake!" or "I wake up!" before climbing out of bed. When she has slept at my parents house, she chooses to sleep in the toddler bed there instead of in the crib. This makes me so happy! My little girl is growing up.

The first few nights of sleeping in the toddler bed were interesting. She is so used to sleeping all over her crib, that I found in some interesting positions. This was the first night in her room. (Don't mind the millions of blankets. She wants them all with her apparently).

This was the second night in the bed. Originally her head was hanging off the side, but when I came back after getting my camera, she curled up like this.

Sleeping tonight - more normal than other nights. 

• Speaking of Sophie's toddler bed, her whole room is starting to undergo a makeover. Yesterday Joe and I went to Ikea and picked up a new dresser for her. Joe put it together last night and we moved it into her room today, moving the old one into Josie's room. I also moved her changing table out today so that it can get painted and then moved into Josie's room. Sophie hasn't been wanting to get her diapers changed on it anymore (minus those poopy ones), so she didn't seem to mind. We put her changing pad on her dresser for now (until Josie gets here) and she seems fine with that. The big brown glider will be the last thing to go, but we will save that until right before my due date. So far, she seems to be doing okay with the changes.
• Our basement is finished now, so we have been able to move the majority of Sophie's toys down there. They are scattered about at the moment, but we bought some bookcases at Ikea to help with storing them. Sophie loves being in the basement. I can't wait until we have things set up so we can actually spend more time down there.
• Sophie's favorite shows are still Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Doc McStuffins, and Yo Gabba Gabba. She constantly asks to watch them and often sings songs from the shows. Mickey is still her all-time favorite show. I love when she interacts with it and shows off what she is learning. I can't hate on the show when I can tell that it is teaching her new things.

She is fascinated by this old stethoscope we found. She kept going around listening to our heartbeats. Too darn cute. She either wants to be like her dad (a PA) or Doc McStuffins.

• We've had some terrible 2 tantrums this month, but not as much as before. I think that picking our battles and letting her do her thing has helped a lot. In fact, I think I've had more tantrums that Sophie this month (good old pregnancy hormones + sheer exhaustion = a crying mess of a momma).
• Funny/gross story of the month. One weekend after getting up at 7am, Sophie and I were downstairs watching cartoons. I fell back asleep on the couch, which happens often. I think Sophie likes having some alone time to play and watch tv without me bothering her. When she gets bored, she will come over, shake me and say, "Mommy, wake up!" It is a pretty good system we have (and it won't last much longer - Josie will 'ruin' that!). Anyway, as I was sleeping I heard Sophie start panicking and crying about something. I sat straight up and she ran over to me, holding up her right hand. It was covered in brown and I thought for sure it was her chocolate Cheerios that she ate for breakfast. It wasn't until her panicked little voice stated, "It poop. Pooooop!" that I realized what happened. She had pooped and reached into her diaper to feel it. She has never done that before and I doubt she will do it again. She seemed a little traumatized by it. I couldn't help but laugh at her reaction.
• Sophie has been extremely good about not touching the presents under the Christmas tree. The night after we put the tree up, there were a few gifts under there. She opened two of them before Joe caught her. After that we kept our presents stacked on the dining room table. A week or so later, I started to put them under the tree. She didn't pay a bit of attention to them and never even asked about them. Tonight we let her open one gift up (the Elmo and Count figurines in one of the toddler bed pictures). She unwrapped it and didn't even ask to open any others. I'm impressed with her self control. I can't wait to see her rip into her gifts on Christmas though.

Lounging with her daddy

Really fuzzy picture from the Festival of Lights

Weekend mornings with my girl are the best.

Mmmm, lima beans

Big Girl Bed

We bought Sophie a 'big girl bed'. She has been playing on it the past few days and likes that she can climb in and out of it. Since she seemed fine with it, we decided to try having her sleep in there. She seemed to sleep pretty well in it. She woke up once, but fell right back asleep. In the morning, she called out for us to come get her. When I went in there, I told her to climb out of bed and she gave me a look that said, "Oh yeah, I can do that with this one." Before her nap today, we asked if she wanted to sleep in her crib or her big bed. She chose the crib. She also chose the crib to sleep in at night. Oh well. We will just ease her into the new bed. Maybe putting it in her room instead of the new room will make a difference. Regardless, she is going to be booted from the crib in two months. I hope she gets used to her new bed before then.

Christmas Time

Sophie helped us decorate our Christmas tree. Of course her favorite thing to do was to take the ornaments off. Still, I am glad that she was able to join in on the tradition of tree decoration. I bet she is an even better helper next year.

Growing Girl

Apparently Sophie has hit a growth spurt. She is a short and small kid, so 6-9 and 6-12 month clothes fit her really well, both in the length and waist...until now. They still fit in the waist, but the pants are all too short! My sister-in-law commented on it a few weeks back, but I just thought it was the one pair of jeans. Then I noticed another pair were getting short...and another pair. Her pants from both yesterday and today were too short, too. I finally had her stand up against the wall where I take her yearly measurements. Sure enough, she has grown at least an inch since August! How exciting for my wee one!
I guess this means that it is time to get out some 12 month clothes. Good thing I have a sewing machine now. It used to take forever to stitch up all the waist bands of her pants for them fit for her. Now it just takes a few seconds! That machine is going to pay for itself this weekend.

27 Months

Sophie now weighs 17 lbs 13 oz! We are so close to another pound party.

On the first day of this month, Sophie stopped calling herself 'Sosie' and started calling herself 'Sophie.' I was equal parts proud and sad. I am going to miss how she used to say her name. Also on the first day of this month, Sophie broke out a perfect 6 word sentence! Joe asked her if she wanted water or milk with her dinner. She replied, "I don't want water or milk." No mistakes. No baby talk. Just a simple, direct sentence. *proud*

Sophie's memory keeps improving. She sings along (somewhat) to the Mickey Mouse theme song and to a Doc McStuffins song. While watching Mickey Mouse she will identify correct shapes, objects, the correct 'tool' to use, etc (she is obsessed with this show so I'm sure she knows each episode by heart). She can identify at least 3/4 of the animals on these ABC animal cards that a good friend of mine made for her (some of them like 'narwhal' and 'quahog' are tough). She focuses on my lips while I am singing songs and tries to mimic with her own lips; she will the try repeating the song later on (For example, "row, row, row, boat...merry, merry...dream." It needs some work - haha.) She knows where items are and where they are supposed to go. She pulls out names of random items which never fails to make us ask "when/where did she learn that?" It is easy to forget just how much of a sponge kids are. The amount of information they pick up daily is astounding!

 

In 'terrible twos' news, Sophie bit a child at the baby sitter's house. Just once and she didn't break skin, but still. Joe and I couldn't believe it! She is so verbal and can express her feelings, so why did she bite someone? Ugh!

Speaking of the terrible twos, due to behavior issues, I spanked Sophie earlier this month. (I admit this because I try to be truthful and honest in this blog. That includes the not so great things about both my daughter and me.) She had been being a hellion all day long, no listening, being defiant, and throwing fits of the kicking and screaming variety. I tried reasoning with her (ha!). I tried time out (nope). I tried hugging her tight to get her to stop thrashing around (that just made her madder). So I did it. I spanked my child. Just three swats on the butt - diaper and pants on and not hard at all. She immediately started crying and said, "I sorry, Mommy. I sorry." (I think she was crying because her feelings were hurt, rather than her being hurt at all...because seriously, it was a pathetically soft spank). That broke my heart! I cried off and on for three days about it. While it did make her stop acting a fool, it made me feel awful. It isn't worth it to ever do it again.

Now lets transition from "ugh, the terrible twos" into "my poor daughter isn't feeling well" mode. This month brought on some sickness for Sophie. She had a runny nose and wet cough basically this whole month. The weather has been all over the place, so I didn't think much of it. We've been giving her vapor rub at night as well as turning on the humidifier, but nothing really helped. Well, that all then led to Sophie getting a double ear infection! Poor girl! She started waking up in the middle of the night screaming and refusing to sleep unless she was with either Joe or me. She became even crankier, too. I took her to the doctor's office and they gave her some ammoxicillin after discovering how gross her ears were. After 5 days of being on it, she didn't seem to be feeling any better. She had more fevers, was lethargic and just not herself. Joe took her back a week after her previous appointment only to find that both ear were still infected. They gave her a stronger medicine and thankfully she is feeling a lot better. She still has a lingering cough that has been waking her up the past two nights, but at least she is on the mend.

Not feeling well at all.

Just 10 more weeks until I can add some pictures of Sophie as a big sister! I can't wait to see what she is like when Josie is born. We will soon find out.

Here are a few other pictures from the month (not that many now that I'm not doing a photo a day with Sophie):

Family trip to the Redman Farm. (It is hilarious to me when I compare this year's pictures at the farm to last year's. It was so cold this year and last year we were in short sleeves! Same month both years, just very different weather.)

Sophie was so excited that we were going to get pumpkins.



Sophie really enjoyed the hay ride...especially when the pumpkin patch came into view.

Helping to pick out a pumpkin.

Feeding the goat. She LOVED this!

One of Sophie's favorite things to do this month is to get all of her hair bows out and have us put them in her hair...and ours, too. That is right, even Joe gets in on the hair bow action.

Sophie wanted to make soup with me. I gave her a sauce pan, an empty pepper shaker and a whisk. She loved it!

Grandma Z bought the girls matching dresses.

Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! As you can see, Sophie was a cow this year. She was able to dress up on three seperate occasions, and was adorable each time (spoken like a true mom). For the most part though she was a headless cow, as she didn't want to put her hood up. Oh well.


It was really cold here, but that didn't stop us from going out and doing a little trick-or-treating. Luckily the costume itself was nice and warm, and I was able to layer her up underneath. (she actually kept her hood up while we were outside when she realized how cold she was). Still, I didn't want her out in the cold that much, so I drove Sophie a few blocks over to visit my friends, Becki and Mike. We parked at the top of their street and hit a few houses on the way. People loved my little cow. We went inside to visit with my friends for awhile (and for Sophie to pilfer half of their candy). On our way back to our car, we stopped by another friend's house (whose son also goes to Sophie's baby sitter). She was so excited to see her Jayden, as he is her favorite at the baby sitter's house. When we finally made it back home, Sophie was ready for round 2 of trick or treating with Joe. They went down to his friend's house and stopped at some houses one the way. The kid made out like a bandit! Sophie is pretty excited with her candy and has already started to eat a few things. (It is funny to think that last year at Halloween was one of the first times we let her eat candy. Now she can't get enough of it!)  Still, I think her Mommy and Daddy are going to have to help her eat some of that candy. Darn! 

My little cow (unhappy because I wanted her to put her hood up) and me (the cowgirl or farmer or something. Whatever I am, Josie has me looking giant!)

Mmmm...candy
 

Daddy dressed as a cow, too!

Stealing candy at Becki's house (and I stole this picture from Becki, so I guess I know where Sophie gets it from)

 



Sophie and the pumpkin she decorated yesterday. She was so darn cute with it. She hugged it to her chest saying, "I love it!" and carried it all over the place. When she saw it today, she said, "Sophie color it." Then she put it in her baby's stroller and took it for a ride around the house. She carried it upstairs and wouldn't let it go. I love this girl!