The Rewards of Extended Breastfeeding

I wasn't sure we would still be nursing well into Sophie's second year, especially when we had to supplement with formula starting at around five months.  But here we are, still going strong at sixteen months!  Sophie is going through a phase where she likes to say "hi" to various objects in her daily life (the paintings over her changing table and the penguin statues in Deokpo Beach in particular).  This morning when I pulled my shirt open to nurse, she looked at my breast and said/signed "Hi, milk!"  It was a good start to the day.

See-see speaks!

Sophie has learned to say her name.  I noticed her saying "she-she" or "see-see" a few times in the past few days, but I didn't figure it out until today.  I did manage to capture it on video:

Numbers

I have started reading the floor numbers to Sophie as we go up and down in the elevator.  She loves this and reminds me to do it by saying "aye! aye!" and pointing or looking towards the number display.  She likes to repeat "ten!" after me when we get to the tenth floor.  This evening when I was putting Sophie to bed, she started saying "aye! aye!" and pointed to the wall hanging over her crib.  It's a cross-stitched picture from my mom with the numbers one through nine on it.  I guess Sophie recognized at least one of the numbers!  So I read out the numbers one through nine and pointed to each one, and after I said "nine," Sophie said, proudly, "TEN!"  I know every parent thinks this, but my daughter is a genius!

First Day in Hong Kong

Here's my first post from Hong Kong, which I started on Thursday morning:

We arrived in Hong Kong yesterday afternoon. Sophie was full of energy for the whole flight until I decided to nurse her during the landing. Then she promptly fell asleep. I don't know how she slept through the landing as we had a bit of excitement: the pilot had to pull up from just above the runway because of bad wind shear. The engines were absolutely roaring as we quickly gained altitude. And Sophie slumbered peacefully on, oblivious. Fortunately, we landed successfully on the second try.

The highlight of the day for me was our bus ride to the hotel. Sophie was thrilled to have her own seat by the window, and she spent the whole ride looking out and talking or signing about the things she saw.  She saw other cars, boats, and lots of umbrellas, which she noted by shouting joyfully "lela! lela!"  I'm not sure if the other passengers enjoyed our ride as much as Sophie, Keegan and I did...

Our hotel is quite nice.  We're staying at the Langham Place Hotel in the Mongkok neighborhood.  It has an absolutely gorgeous pool on the roof, a beautiful spa which Keegan and I will be taking advantage of later, and a very nice lounge with an excellent breakfast and lots of other goodies.  We got a chance to explore the lounge a bit while we waited for our room to be made up, and it was great!  There were a few toys for Sophie, a TV, and all kinds of tasty snacks on offer.

Sophie enjoys the view and the video games in the lounge at the hotel. 

Keegan enjoys the view, a beer, and Sophie's free Langham Place hat.

Once we finally got into the room, we put Sophie to sleep for a while and took a short nap ourselves.  In the evening, we took advantage of the pool (a bit chilly up on the roof, so we swam in the huge hot tub instead) and then went to the mall across the street for dinner.  We had a very tasty Thai meal, ordering waaaaay too much food and doing our best to stuff it all in.

Sophie's first taste of coconut milk at the Thai restaurant.  It was a hit.

World's Weirdest Oatmeal Flavor, as seen in the grocery store at the Langham Place Mall.

Sophie was fairly well-behaved considering our long day of travel, but I think all of us were happy to wrap the meal up and head home to go to bed.  Today we head to Disney!

Umbrella

Yesterday at the rainy Geoje Flower Festival Sophie started saying "lala" for umbrella. She also accidentally tried her first piece of kimchee. After it was promptly rejected, she spent the rest of the meal guzzling water.

New Words

Today when we were reading Ten Little Babies by Gyo Fujikawa, Sophie started pointing to one of the pages and saying "kai! kai!" and pointing to her face.  I knew she was trying to both say and sign something but I couldn't understand.  Finally, she pointed to the picture she was looking at, a baby who was crying.  She was saying "cry" and using her pointer finger to sign the tears.  That's the first time she's said "cry," although she has been using the sign for a while.  Shortly afterward, she signed and said "help" to ask me to pull out a big book wedged in the back of her book basket.

She's also started trying to jump, but she can't actually get her feet off the ground.  She just stretches and bounces and tries so hard.

The Sophie Journal

After a conversation with my friend and awesome mom Marina, I decided that I wanted to keep better notes about Sophie's day-to-day accomplishments and development, like she does for her kids.  Being attached at the hip to my laptop and iPhone (whenever I'm not attached to Sophie, that is), I am trying to figure out how to do this well on the blog.  I realize that many (ok, most) of my blog posts are about Sophie anyway, but I am hoping to keep a more detailed record of how she's growing and changing.  These details may not be so interesting to anyone other than me and Sophie's grandparents, but I think it will be wonderful for us to have a record of her growing up.  These posts are going to be labeled "Sophie Journal," and a click on the Sophie Journal link in the sidebar should bring up just those details.  Bear with me as I tinker.

Greatest Hits from Sophie's Fifteenth Month

I know, I know, Sophie is sixteen months old already.  But it's not always easy to find time for posting, and unfortunately, Mom is a perfectionist about doing things in chronological order.

Painting at our friend Mika's house.  This video is short for obvious reasons.

I kept thinking "Show Mommy how the piggies eat!"

This is about the longest amount of time that Sophie spends on her bike.  I hope she'll be more interested as she gets older!