Sitting and other Sophie stories

Life with this seven-month old is ... Fun!!

As of early this week, Sopie's sitting up on her own. Sometimes she just gets so excited about it!

Other times it's the perfect position for seriously studying toys- new and old and different. Her favourite toys today: the tupperware mini ladel, a paper towel roll, and a big empty can of formula. It makes the most satisfying sounds when she wacks it with things! When she makes a really good noise, she looks at me with so much pride and glee...my heart literally melts.

We are all about the games these days. Suddenly, everything is a game! Among her favourites are dancing with Momma (especially when she gets dipped!) and playing peek-a-boo. We like to play it anytime, anwhere, but most often we play it with this little blanket. I take turns covering our faces ("Where'd Momma go?" etc) and lifting up the blanket and exclaiming the expected "Peek-a-boo!" (or just to mix things up a bit, sometimes "there she is!"). Well, Do you know what she did today??! It was the best!

She was lying on top of a wide blanket on her changemat (getting wiped). Suddenly, she grabbed the corner of the blanket and covered her face with it! I looked at her wondering, and tried "Where'd Sophie go?" and out she popped beaming. she giggled when I said peekaboo.

And here's another game she loves... raspberries upside down. She comes back down laughing :)

(ok, so it's kinda fun for me too!)

Life at 7 months is full of people. Lots of family and friends. Here she is with her cousins Nikita and Sebastian.
Turns out this is a pretty good time for Sophie to be left with new people while I go to work. As hard as it was for me to get used to at first, she adjusted really quickly. She's beginning to recognize more faces that she sees regularly, and gets excited to see people like Nanna and Grandad, Bec, Aunty Pam and her very fun cousin Nikita. But she's still pretty happy for strangers, provided that they give her really big smiles and plenty of food.


Life at 7 months is full of outings. I have the occasional quiet day at home (like today), and they are rare. which is nice, cause I get to really appreciate them. But for me, juggling a part-time career and home means running errands and doing shopping on many of my home days. Sophie's going to get her fill of the shopping centres (malls). But so far, she still seems to really like it. These photos were from last week sometime, hanging out with Ryan and Bec.

Life at 7 months is Messy! Ok, I'm sure it will be from here on out. But she has just started to show real interest in helping to feed herself. Usually that means grabbing for the spoon just before it's about to enter her mouth, and trying to stuff it along with her whole hand inside.then she usually drops the spoon. At the beginning of a feed, when she's very hungry, she gets quite grumpy if I try to give her the spoon (or even an extra one of her own.) She grumbles at me with her mouth open wide and her arms flung out to her sides. "It's about eficiency Momma, I'm not doing anything, you just shovel it in!) But later, after she's closer to full, she suddenly starts getting quite excited and animated. That's when she starts trying to help ... which is funny and makes me laugh...which makes her laugh...which she inevitably waits to do until just as soon as I've put the next bite into her mouth...and the laugh sends food out everywhere. It's a hilarous mess.

And yes, she is very proud of her self when she manages to get a bite to herself.

This photo? Yeah, this mess is nothing. This is just with yogurt...I thought she looked cute trying to feed herself. You should've seen her with the veggies she had today! She's was covered head to toes. (a cute look!)

And did I tell you she splashes? Kicks and splashes in the bath...and had her first dip in the Kroes's swimming pool one of these recent weekends - she loved it! kicked and splashed so hard that she slept for 11 hours straight that night. (Still a mythical sleep number in our house.)

Going back to work is hard- mostly because of the stress of balancing and organizing everything and still trying to do everything well. And I miss her. But it's better than I thought it would be too. I'm enjoying my work, Sophie seems to enjoy her days away from me (though I like to think they're not full of quite as much fun or learning as the Momma days), and we I still have plenty of timeto enjoy each other. So it's not actually so bad. I think I'm getting used to it.

Oh, just in case you were wondering, It's perfectly fine to call her little again to your heart's content. She is still dainty and petite and adorable and all those things, but she's growing so well that we're not worried about her weight anymore. She's really healthy, so it's ok that she's small.

That's all for now. Sophie and I are going out to weed some of the jungle in our front yard :)