Constant Comment

We have decided that if Sophie were a tea, she would be "constant comment."  She talks non-stop these days!  Here are a few of her recent gems:

Sitting on the potty, apropos nothing:  Guess what, Mama!  You a sillypuss!

Riding in her stroller during this afternoon's run (repeatedly, for about 10 minutes):  My put on my running shoes, run all the way to BUDDHA PARK!

In reply to my asking whether she'd like to swim like Mama and Dada when she is older:  When my two, my go swimming!

Discussing Keegan's absence at dinner a few nights ago:
Sophie:  Dada go to work.
Mama:  No, Dada is going to a restaurant.
Sophie:  Dada have meeting.
Mama:  That's right.  Dada is having a meeting at a restaurant.
Sophie:  That really silly, Mama.

Her three current favorite things to talk and wonder about are:

1. When are we going to go to another hotel?  (We stayed in hotels for the past two weekends, and apparently hotels are waaaay better than home.  The chief attraction seems to be that during bathtime at the first hotel, Mama put her feet in the bathtub with Sophie. At Sophie's request, this was repeated at the second hotel, further adding to the hotel magic.)
2. When are we going back to the Rainbow School?  (We visited Sophie's playschool last week, and she loved it!  This is a very good sign, since she'll start two days a week in September.)
3. When is it my birthday? (One week from today!  But it is very hard to explain that concept to a toddler.)

I Love You

Today, after eating lunch in the food court at Home Plus, I was holding Sophie on my lap and loving on her.  After she looked up and gave me a kiss, she said "I love you."  It was pretty great.  It was the first time she has ever said "I love you" unprompted.

This evening at bath time, Sophie was playing with a blue submarine toy.  She thought it was an airplane, so I explained how it was a special boat that goes under the water.  Then I started singing a particularly rousing version of "Yellow Submarine."  When I finished, Sophie looked at me with concern and said "Submarine blue, Mama."  It's very hard to explain things to your poor, ignorant mother sometimes.

Latest Words and Skills

While watching Sesame Street, anytime there's music:  "Mama, I like this music!"

While exercising with Mama:

Mama, counting:  "Eight...Nine...Ten."

Sophie, to Mama's complete surprise:  "Eleven!"

I was only going to do ten leg presses, but Sophie is a demanding coach!

New physical accomplishments include putting pants on by herself (still pretty hit or miss) and jumping off of things.

Our Bluesy Girl

Sophie has a couple of important new skills:

1.  Walking on her toes - She prefers tiptoeing to things like getting dressed, putting on her shoes, helping Mommy with anything, taking a bath, etc.

2.  Playing the harmonica.  Keegan has been trying to get her to do this for ages, but there was a lot of confusion between the harmonica and the kazoo.  Now she can blow without also squealing along.

Oh yeah, and we're also potty training.  Whew!  Is there anything this girl can't do?

Surprises Every Day

Sophie has many amazing skills and abilities these days, but my favorite moments come when she improves her speaking. First of all, she sounds adorable (my current favorite words: blue (ba-looo), splash (sp-lASH), noodles (guh-loooos), and wow), but more importantly I get a glimpse into her mind as she communicates more effectively. Here are a few recent surprises from Sophie's mouth:

While playing with a set of farm animal magnets, excitedly: "two chickens!" (I had no idea she understood numbers and counting that well.)

Upon seeing Mama wearing a shirt she hadn't seen before:  "Mama new shirt!"

Instead of getting worked up into a crying fit on the diaper table:  "Mama, I want durse."

When asked whether she would like to sit on Uncle Tim's motorcycle:  "No want motorcycle."
(I want and I no want are both new additions to Sophie's vocabulary.)

After nursing one morning:  "Snuggle mama!"  (This is my favorite new word, but unfortunately, it has quickly passed out of use.)

Sophie's favorite new game involves her panda and rabbit puppets from Nana.  She is overjoyed when panda and "dee-dee" cheer for her as she goes through her usual routine.  She requests their cheers at every turn:  "Time durse.  Panda, Dee-Dee Yaaaaaaay!"  "Diaper change.  Panda, Dee-Dee Yaaaaaaaaaay!"  She likes to see Panda and Dee-Dee clap when she behaves well.  I wish she would like to behave well for ME, but I'll take what I can get.

Also, that naughty monkey Alex has expanded his repertoire of misbehavior to include jumping on the chair.  Now I have another thing to reprimand him for, much to Sophie's delight.

Out of the Mouths of Snorks

Sophie is speaking more and more clearly, and her vocabulary grows every day.  Keegan and I wanted to write down a few of our favorite Sophie-isms before she stops saying them.  In fact, a few of her cutest words have already been replaced with more correct versions.  Sadly, Curious George is no longer referred to as "Tatum," and the doctor is no longer the "ga-gok."  But we have some new funny words:

Noodles remain goo-goos
Garbage is ga-gops
Pajamas are na-nums
Bunnies are "dee-dee-dee" in a very high-pitched squeaky voice, sometimes but not always accompanied by a hopping hand sign.

Another funny language item:  When Sophie says "uh-oh" or "oops" I always ask her "What happened?"  So now she saves me the trouble and says "Oops!  Happen."

Carry and Wear

When Sophie wants to be picked up and carried, she says "tai! tai!"  I noticed recently that when she wants to wear an article of clothing or wants her doll to wear something, she also says "tai."  I thought that was an interesting overlap of meaning since there are two distinct words for wearing and carrying in English but only one (porter) in French.  A quick check of Google Translate to shore up my faulty language memory reveals that German and Polish also cover both concepts with one word (although the situation is slightly more complicated in Polish).  When I told Keegan about my observation, his initial reaction was "Why would you ever think those two things would be covered by the same word?" but apparently Sophie hasn't yet been infected with that English-speaking mindset.  Language acquisition is fascinating!

On a further note, "tai" does triple duty in Sophie's vocabulary, also meaning "ride."  She will point to a bike or a ride-on toy and says "tai!"

Also, I think we may be at the start of a "do-it-myself" streak for Miss Sophie.  She has been wanting to put on her clothes by herself lately, but unfortunately, we look to be a long way from successful self-dressing.  The drawback of this phase is a lot of frustration and occasional tears when Mommy steps in, but the advantage is that fruitless attempts to get her head and arms into a shirt keep her entertained for several minutes at a time!

A Little Gratitude Goes a Long Way

Sophie has really blossomed in the past couple weeks.  We spent the holidays in Hawaii: two full weeks of fun in the sun with all four grandparents.  It was wonderful!  When we came back, I could really see how different Sophie was from when we had left, even though it was only half of a month!  She's also outgrown a bunch of clothes.  Wow, I guess eighteen months is a real milestone!

One of the aspects of Sophie's development that has really exploded is her language.  She is making a lot more two-word utterances ("Bye Dada," "hot noodles," "See-see turn," "Mama sit"), and her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds.  She can call her friends by name now and can tell Keegan some things that we did during our days.  My favorite new skill, though, is that she says thank you when I give her something or do something for her.  There is nothing more rewarding than getting a "gecks" from Sophie.  During those terrible first few weeks, when my every effort at comfort and care was met with screaming, I could never imagine such sweetness.  But here it is, and I love it!

I was really proud of Sophie earlier this week when she named both the orange and blue markers in her marker box.  The grandmothers report that she was identifying her yellow cup in the bathtub last week, but the markers were the first I saw of her really getting her colors.  She's not terribly consistent yet, but I am impressed nonetheless.

Updates about Hawaii will come soon!

Proud and Not-so-Proud

Sorry I've been so absent.  Things have not gotten less interesting around here, but they have gotten hectic as we prepare for our trip to Hawaii for the holidays and Sophie decides not to nap well in the afternoons. Poor thing has a nasty cold and is getting her canine teeth.

I was very proud of Sophie earlier this week when we were playing at the toy library with Sophie's friend Daniel.  Sophie was playing with a toy bus that Daniel had abandoned, and Daniel, in true toddler fashion, decided that he desperately needed it back.  Sophie looked on in bewilderment, still holding onto the bus, as Daniel started to cry.  She looked at me and said and signed "cry! cry!"  I told her that he was crying because he wanted to play with the bus.  And she immediately picked it up and gave it to him!  I was so proud of her!  I'm sure this generosity will not survive the inevitable terrible twos, but I hope it will make occasional appearances from now on.

I am not so proud that we have inadvertently taught Sophie to say "gross!" every time she coughs.  She has a horrible raspy cough with this cold, and it is indeed gross.  So now she goes "hack, hack, GROSS" and grins like crazy.  If you're going to be sick it's good to have a sense of humor.

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!

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.