We're Back

Sorry this blog has been MIA so long.

Sofia is 3 and a half, growing like a weed and learning at an astonishing rate.

She can:

- Make up stories and songs
- Draw stick figures and copy simple drawings
- Write her name legibly (which is more than I can do!)
- Remember the spellings of her friends’ names
- Distinguish what letter many words start with
- Do a somersault and/or cartwheel, with assistance
- Eat with “grownup” table implements
- Use inverse reasoning. Told the pancakes she helped make were delicious, she said “The pancakes weren’t as good when I didn’t help make them.”
- Walk up stairs with alternating feet
- Recite her phone number and address
- Pedal a tricycle under her own power

That’s an amazing list. But still trying to teach Sofia some of the more important things lately. Like:

- Eating veggies? Well we’re making some strides. She knows why she needs to eat veggies. But that’s not usually reason enough. Chocolate pudding? Now there’s motivation to eat veggies. Sometimes. They say you’re not to use dessert as a bribe for eating right. But they obviously never tried to get a 3-year-old to eat spinach.
- Also exposed the girl for the first time to Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin records. Sat here at the computer and she stood on my lap, dancing as I held her enough that she would not fall. Girl’s got moves, and she liked Otis’s “I Can’t Turn You Loose,” “Think” and “See-Saw” best.
“This song’s about a see-saw,” she said, giggling. Well, it sort of is, kid. She liked it when I pointed out that the guitar sounds like a chicken. (That’s no domestic poultry! That’s Steve Cropper!)
- She also asked me about the words to “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.” “What’s that song about, daddy?” Well, it’s about a rainy day … but it’s also about trying to stay happy even when things are going wrong, I told her. She seemed to get that. She likes that song. I like the fact my girl likes well-crafted music.
- Yesterday we raked up the copious leaves in the yard. At one point I brought around the leaf blower to the front yard, where she was helping her mom, and she grinned and waved at me .. totally daddy's girl. And then, after each load of leaves from the back to the front curb, she ran back with this intent little 3-year-old girl running stride I can't really describe, other than to say what it lacks in classic running form, it makes up for in determination.

Can You Keep a Secret?

Last night Greg picked up Sofia from preschool. He must have been talking about my Mother's Day gift with her in car. She and I were playing in the sand table outside later when she started this conversation:

Sofia: Mama, we need to talk...
Me: About what, Sofia?
Sofia: About your bike, Mama..
(I don't own a bike, and she knows this.)
Me: What bike, Baby?
Sofia: The bike that's supposed to be a surprise! (She's very excited.)
(Uhoh)
Me: Was this supposed to be a secret, Sofia?
Sofia: Yessssss. (Looks excited!)
Sofia: Uhoh. ( Looks likes she's going to cry.)
Me: It's ok, I won't tell.

She smiles at me and I change the subject.

Guess I am finally getting a bike!)

Riding your bike

I am so proud of you. You love riding your trike.

Using your words

I love how well you talk these days. But the better you get takes you one more step away from being a baby to a big girl. For posterity, I have include some pronuciations for words you used to say.

burly-burly (butterfly)
bah-lana (banana)
swimming cool (pool)
one, two, free, four, five, six, eleven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, eleven, eleven.

Happy Birthday, Sofia

April 18, 2007

Dear Sofia,

Happy Birthday! You’re three years old!



You’ve been so excited about your birthday – for more than a month now! You’re old enough now to understand the concept of holidays and special days. You told us what kind of birthday party you wanted (Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat), what you want to eat (pizza!) and who you wanted to come to your party.

It’s gone something like this:

Me: What’s going to happen on your birthday?
- You: I’m going to get presents!

And what else?
- Play with my friends!

What are you going to eat?
- Cake!

And what are you going to sing?
- singing: Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday Sofia, happy birthday to you!

It’s an exception that proves the rule. Yes, it’s a special day that comes around only once a year, and you’ve been to other birthday parties and understand what the fuss is all about, but the way you’ve been about your birthday shows so much about who you’ve become and what you’re like. You’ve become more aware of your surroundings and more adept at telling us what you think, how you feel, what you want (and don’t want).

A year ago you were just using phrases and short sentences. But now, you’re carrying on real conversations with us now. And do we ever love talking to you!

“I’m Sofia! I’m a big girl!” you announced in the car. “I’m almost all growed up,” you said putting on your own clothes. “Daddy, someday can you and me and mama go bowling again?” you asked. “You’re my best friend,” you’ve told us both. You pick out your clothes for school and order your own food at the Friendly. You tell us what books you want to read, what toys you want to play with and what you don’t want to eat at dinner (practically everything, and no that doesn’t make us all kinds of happy but we know you’re both pushing for limits and staking out your independence at the same time, and we’ll live through it – and I hope by the time you’ve read this you’ve learned to like carrots. Please? But I digress).

And oh yes – this year you learned to use the potty by yourself. We were so proud.

And are you smart! You can recite entire pages – nearly entire books – of Dr. Seuss. You’re learning letters and what words they start (“S is for me!” you say, knowing your name begins with that letter) and building 12-piece puzzles on your own. I love coloring and drawing with you and playing pretend games, hiding in our “clubhouse” from the colorful, fuzzy “monsters” you invent – all of them, somewhat suspiciously, with the name FlopsyMopsyCottontale, and watching you dance. Mommy loves to paint or cut out paper shapes or decorate Easter eggs or make things with Play-Doh with you.

But I love quiet time with you, too. Sometimes you’re difficult to put to bed because you have such an exacting routine and you want to hold the book and turn the pages … man, you’re a handful sometimes, and when I’m done trying to reason with you or explain we’re doing things a certain way and that’s final, I have to remind myself “oh yeah, she’s 3 and she’s tired, this is supposed to happen.” But I love reading to you and seeing how engaged you get with your books. Sometimes we just look at each other and share that special Daddy-Sofia moment – the kind where I can’t help but smile at you, And when you’re really tired, sometimes you still fall asleep on my shoulder or next to me in the easy chair in the living room, and I don’t want to get up or bring you upstairs because I love how you rest on me, warm and snuggly and button-cute, like the little girl you were not so very long ago.

That little girl from a year ago is already growing up – and she had grown up so much, too from one-year-old you. I look at the pictures now, and how you have changed .. so very grown up, such a pretty little girl. It’s amazing to me, when I think about it, that just three years ago your mom and I were camped out at South Shore Hospital, waiting for you to be born, and then were completely overwhelmed with joy by the miracle that is you, in all your pudgy, head-full-of-hair glory. And now here you are, three short years later, a smart, sweet, talented and beautiful person we’re so, so very proud of. We’ve seen the way you interact with your friends at daycare, with strangers we meet, with our friends, and we’re so proud at how polite and charming and just plain good you are.

Where has the time gone? You’re growing so fast … we love the way you’ve grown and how big you are, but we hope you’ll slow down enough to enjoy being 3 – that you’ll be a little girl for a while. Maybe that’s kind of selfish, since you want to be so big .. but there will be time enough for the stress of this world. Be happy and play. At least so we can play with you and share that happy time, too.

“She was this small!” we say, holding our hands about 21 inches apart – that’s how long you were. It doesn’t seem possible. And we look around at our world, and what children and young adults are confronted with now, and it makes us a little nervous that you’re coming of age in such uncertain times. But we have such hope.

Happy birthday, Sofia, and so many, many more…
Love always and forever,
daddy

And the Oscar for overacting goes to....

...Sofia, for her performance the other day when she was having a tantrum and wanted milk.

"Oh please oh please oh please can I have something to drink?!?!?" she wailed from the upstairs hall. "Oh please oh pleeeeeeeasssssee?"

It's hard to be all stern and parental when you're thisclose to cracking up laughing.

Love makes a ... bakery?

I asked Sofia a question she knew the answer to ... and got more than I bargained for.

"What do mommy and daddy and Sofia make?" I asked her, expecting her to say "a family."

The answer?

"Cake! .... No, cookies!"

Then she started singing the chorus to the Sister Sledge disco classic "We Are Family."

Little clown ... no idea where she got that from...

Don't sugar-coat it, Sofia ...

"I'm not happy about this."
-- Sofia, after getting a bandage on the scrape on her knee.

We're glad you're here

Every once in a while. Sofia says or does something that really catches me off guard.

Tonight was one of those once in a whiles. The kind that makes me wonder if, as much as we think she's a little genius, we're still underestimating just how smart and perceptive she truly is.

She took longer than usual to collect to get to bed – the result of a too-long nap at day care – and was being kind of difficult getting set up for our bedtime ritual. Don’t turn off the light, daddy. You sit here. No, I turn the pages. Etc.

But sure enough, about 15 minutes later after some howling on her part, when she was finally set up in bed and I was reading to her, her little angel aspect reappeared, recognizing letters, reciting memorized Suessian passages and chatting with me in her sing-songy little girl voice, grinning at me with that beautiful little girl face.

“My birthday’s coming soon,” she said.

Up for a challenge, I asked her – “what’s going to happen on your birthday?"

“I’m going to get presents,” she said.

And what else?

“I’m going to have a party.”

And what will you do there?

“Play with my friends.”

And what are you going to eat?

“Cake!”

And what are you going to sing?

“Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday Sofia, Happy birthday to you,” she sang.

We giggled and smiled. And then she really blew me out out of the water.

“I’m glad I’m here,” she said.

And then a little later she asked: “Are you glad I’m here?”

“Every single day I wake up, I’m glad you’re here,” I told her. “Every single day.”

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” she said.

As soon as she was down to bed .. sort of .. I ran downstairs to the computer to see if my memory was correct. Lo and behold, I wrote this the day before her very first birthday party:

Do you know why your birthday is such a big deal? Because celebrating it means celebrating the very fact that you are here with us, and that we are so glad you are! Someday when you’re bigger, I hope you will always feel the same way – that it’s a day to say “I’m glad I’m me and I’m glad I’m here!”

How did she do that? How did she know?

I’m absolutely thrilled, mystified and emotionally blown away by this. How did she know? Did she read my mind? Read our blog? But then again, I also wrote this in that same post:

And yet it is as if you have always been with us; that despite the fact you are still relatively brand new in our world, we have known and loved you our whole lives.

Maybe that explains everything.

Oh, and before I put her to bed she asked "Am I beautiful?"

"Of course you are," I told her. "You're very beautiful. Especially here, where it counts," I said, pointing to her heart. "You are beautiful and don't let anyone tell you different."

She really is.

I think, therefore I eat

She said this at dinnertime:

"I'm smart. I can have all the butter I want."

Don't tell her pediatrician this...

The Long Awaited Update Post

Or: Mom and Dad are Lame.

Otherwise, why would we have waited until January to update Sofia's blog? It sank in when Darienne from California (congratulations!) wrote to say "I'm assuming everything's OK and that you're just busy since you haven't posted anything since October."

Oh, yeah. How many times did we say "we oughta post this?" Many. How many times did we actually do so? None.

Well. It's not like nothing has been going on here, folks. She's been busy growing and such. Let's check out the highlights. Yes this is four months in a single post. As Johnny Rotten once said, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

Halloween: Good lord, this goes back to Halloween!

Sofia went out as a butterfly. Those paying attention might notice that part of her costume looks awfully familiar. Like last year's Pumpkin Princess costume. We assure you that any such similarity is strictly coincidence and that we would never, ever, recycle costumes for the next season. Oh, no. Not that. Anyway, Sofia was quite busy .. first there was the Halloween party thrown by the folks in my building at Very Large Sports Network. Then my coworker K. Lee and his family arrived in time to avail themselves of the chocolately goodness being distributed in our suburban subdivision.
As of this writing the Halloween candy is not yet gone. Not even close. Not only because we limits the candy consumption pretty strictly -- we were swimming in it. Girl knows how to procure free chocolate.



Thanksgiving found us in Adams with the entire family, and hooray for that. That kept plenty us busy, but it was good to see everyone. We had dinner at Michelle’s aunt and uncle’s house and with all present, there was enough for a kid’s table. Don’t know if you can see the plastic sheeting underneath the table, but here are Amanda, Alyssa and Sofia, together for the first time in a long time:



Here’s uncles Danny and Leigh doing their jobs.



And here in Pittsfield, here’s Grandpa and Uncle Mike hanging out with their new friend. Yes, they’re watching football. Note: Mike has the family edition of "Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever," given to him in 1973 if memory serves. I bought Sofia her own copy when she was born, because that book was just that good.


Early December brought a visit to Annemarie and Jeff’s house, and more playtime with cousin Amanda, for her second birthday. She has grown by leaps and bounds and she and Sofia make great play friends. Not as fun: nearly running out of gas on the MassPike. We’ve never been so happy so see Millbury.



December was actually kind of a crappy month, until the holidays came. The same day I got in a car accident and Sofia threw up on me .. how’s that for crappy?

But we got through it all and the holiday was wonderful.

We hosted family down here in Connecticut on Christmas Eve, and it was a wonderful to have family here and together for the occasion. Two of the grandmas (Cathy and Gail), two uncles (Mike and Danny), Auntie Kim and Alyssa and cousin John were all here and good times were had. Of course it didn’t snow a bit … but that allowed me to make scallops wrapped in bacon on the grill, which is how they’re best prepared.

Here’s Grandma Gail and Uncle Mike with their prezzies. Mike’s wearing the hat Michelle made (and digging the Bob Seger CD he got, off-camera) while Gail tries out the arm warmers and gloves.

But the hit of the evening was easily Sofia dancing to the ballet set and DVD that Uncle Dan bought. Our little prima ballerina, who got potty trained in part because she wanted to be able to take dance lessons, took right to it. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Here she is practicing Swan Lake (and here we are saving up for years of dance shoes and tutus):





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Christmas morning, Sofia discovered that Santa had been kind, indeed. This dollhouse is huge, folks. It took hours with power tools and beer … er, excuse me, it took a lot of being very good and asking Santa nicely … to get it in the house. But it was all worth it. Here’s Sofia and daddy enjoying it:



Then we went to Pittsfield to see Grandma and Grandpa and Great-Grandpa Erwin. Here’s Sofia in her beautiful holiday dress that Aunt Corrine bought her:



And yes, the holidays are incredibly tiring: