Lovely Little Person

Sophie is 19 months old, and she is really beginning to show off her personality. Of course, she has all permission and expectation to grow and change - I'm not putting her in any kind of personality box. But it is so much fun for me to be able to say that there are things I know about who she is right now, as a unique individual child.

Sophia loves to dance and sing. Her teachers in the toddler room at the early-childhood-education day care say that she is their best dancer! (They love her there. Of course.) If Sophie is ever unsettled or grumpy, here's a sure-fire tip: simply put on some happy music or a video with people singing and dancing, and she is calm. Or spinning around in circles, joining in with the actions, or trying to sing along. She makes up her own songs complete with actions too. Her favourite songs feature going in the car with daddy, momma and Nanna and Granddad. And there's lots of waving and clapping and complicated hand and finger motions...but I'm clueless about most of what's going on.

She most often chooses from 2 favourite activities. One is reading books - babbling and telling stories to herself, pointing to characters and even using different voices as she recites an uncomprehensable "dialogue" for the story. She loves books with familiar characters in them - at the moment they're Maisy and Curious George.

The other favourite activity is colouring. Well, colouring and painting, but she really only paints at school so far. Sophie has decided she wants to learn all the names of all the colours. I had no mission to teach them to her at 1 and a half! But she colours several times a day, for really loooong stretches for a toddler - 10 to 15 minutes easily! she draws circles and dots (both of which she can say now!) and heaps of other pointy and swirly shapes, boldly covering the whole page. She always must use every colour available at least once or twice. And she uses her colour words throughout the day. She points to new things and says "lellow!" her very favourite colour. She also knows blue and black today, and is quickly on her way to knowing pink, brown, red and purple (she loves to say purple). And I, being the proud mother that I am, think that her paintings are the best in her toddler class. But I am biased. And she adores painting.

If you haven't figured out already, or haven't talked to Sophie in the last few months, I still probably don't have to tell you this, but I will anyway. Sophia is very verbal. She loves to talk. She asks questions and tells stories and even talks to people she doesn't know very well (as long Momma is nearby and she's had some time to get comfortable). I still can't understand most of what she says - she's babbling more than she is not. But she is really practicing pronunciation - words only Dan and I could understand a few months ago are now very clear to anyone - hello, cheese, apple, up, DadDY. She's getting really good at please (although it's still peas) and working better pronunciation of painting, plane, umbrella and amen. She puts words together whenever she can - Momma Daddy go car? More cheese...P(l)EASE!! up up up...p(l)ane, daddy up p(l)ane.

Sophie loves to give kisses and cuddles. She does it affectionately and quickly- and then she's out of your arms and independent again. She loves her blankets and pillow - often pulls them all out of the cot and walks around the house with them. I really don't know why.

She is still terrified of high-pitched loud noises. She hates the vaccum cleaner and the food processor. She is comforted if a parent who is not operating said machinary holds her, or if she has a dummy and hundreds of soft comforting things in the safety of her cot while the noises whirr. So far, that seems to be the only way to stop the screaming.

Sophie doesn't mind animals in theory - she seems pretty fond of them in books (although she really seems to prefer people, and animals personified as characters) - but she is still very skittish around them in real life. She loves going to see the puppies and fish and everything else at the pet shop (I take her there pretty regularly), and she likes the dogs at Nanna's house, but she very rarely will actually touch an animal. As far as I know, she has never been hurt by an animal or had any kind of trauma related to them, but she always flinches and jumps away from them if they are close enough to touch.

Oh so many other things! She loves swimming and playing in water and sand. She likes to help and try to do the same things as grown ups. Sweeping and cooking are 2 favs at the moment. She will build towers with blocks and do shape sorting puzzles, but she hasn't got a very long attention span for that. She plays at parks and playgrounds and enjoys them most and longest if there are other children there to follow around and watch and laugh with. She is beginning to imaginative play with little people and dolls, and even occasionally with other children! The other day, she and Ryan were playing with her kitchen together; he cooked for her and she tasted what he made and told him that she liked it. They are awesome together! And her favourite TV shows right now seem to be Play School (she loves the people, the singing, the storytelling, the fun things they do.) Elmo's world, Maisy and Sesame Street. But she also likes cooking shows, and of course, anything that involves painting, singing and dancing.

Ok, that's probably enough going on about my daughter at the moment.
If there's anything else that you know about her that I've forgotten to mention, feel free to add it. I don't want to forget these things when I am old. (I seem to be getting there rather quickly!)

Home again- back from 2 holidays

In case anyone is wondering, we are all home again, and doing well. We had a fun time at the beach... fun is interpreted differently with an 18-month old though. I've decided. Fun takes into account the relative amounts and pitch of the tantrums, the duration of them, and then compares them to the length and power of the giggling bright-eyed delight of every other moment that doesn't involve a melt-down. Fun is running on an endless expanse of sand for the first time, sitting down in it and covering yourself in it from head to toe as quickly as possible. Joy is splashing and jumping in this strange new salty water, while parents smile and watch extra carefully for dangerous things you cannot imagine... stonefish for example, which are the same colour as the sand, look like stones, and are perfectly harmless, unless you step on them. Then they puff up into insanely poisonous balls of spike, There were way too many stonefish in the water for me. We did a good job keeping out of their way :)

There are other nice memories too... Sophie's vocabulary growing every day "b(ea)ch," "hot," "no car!"... eating all our meals outside on the balcony looking over the ocean, going for long walks through the little town, visiting the reef aquarium - Sophie really enjoyed that. She got to touch starfish and coral, look at massive big fish and all kind of colourful little ones right up close, and participate in feeding some sea turtles. And I thought it was pretty fantastic too.

And now we're home again. Feeling pretty amazingly lucky, blessed, fortunate - pick your favourite adjective. It had been so so long since we'd had any kind of real vacation, and now Sophie and I are just home from 2. And after being away for the best part of a month, it is really peaceful and right to be home.
But I haven't really mentioned Christmas, or for that matter any of the latter days of our excellent journey home in Minnesota. I guess that's the tricky thing about having 2 places to put things - There are heaps of photos up on facebook, and a few videos too. It's much easier to upload them there. But I'll just put a few favourites here.
In summary of our trip to Minnesota...

Sophie very quickly acclimatised to the cold weather, and started to love it! By the 2nd time she played in the snow, she was giggling and throwing herself into it. By the 3rd week of our trip, she was asking walking to the door and asking to play outside in the "coooooold" first thing every morning.

We made a couple of trips to the Childrens' Museum with friends, and we all enjoyed that!

Sophie learned to walk while we were there. She left home as a crawler who could take a few steps, and came home a walker (with a few good bruises and a whole lot of determination to go faster and faster!)

I had the rare opportunity to share long, grown up conversations with my family and some of my closest friends. To play games and hang out and share Christmas and laughing and good food being together. Those memories are the most unforgettable Christmas goodies for me this year.

And Sophie - she absolutely loved her cousins and her grandparents. It was so fun for her to meet all kinds of big people who love her, she basks in the centre of attention :) But her big boy cousins Noah and Aaron, they were pretty exciting! She loves to point to them in photos still and tell long stories about them.

And now we are so happy to be home. Sophie's happy to be home to her vegimite and mangos and her daddy. But we're also missing everyone we got to see in Minnesota. Thanks to all of you who welcomed us into your homes and gave us such excellent memories. Thank you!

Blessings and peace and a very happy New Year!

In Flight stories

Sophie and I send greetings to wherever you are in cyberspace or real life - from the cold and slushy, cloudy and friendly Northern land of St. Paul, Minnesota. Where 6:30 a.m. still looks like the middle of the night, and feels a bit like the end of a long day. Where everything is backward and familiar, strange and home at the same time.

I don't really have time to be writing yet, I should be in bed now. But I wanted a chance to say hello and share a quick story or two for anyone who might be wondering "how did the flight go? how did Sophie go?" The short answer is it was long and exhausting and she did surprisingly well. She did sleep, and she did play, and she did eat well and smile at lots of people (and stare in disbelief at most of them.) She absolutely loved looking out the windows at airports - telling me about all the vehicles and the people - pointing them all out and even using gestures and sound effects to tell me about what they were doing. The up close view of planes landing on the runway at Brisbane was a real hit!

The hardest parts were waiting in long slow lines, being delayed on the ground, and take offs and landings (because she had to sit still in a seatbelt on my lap and couldn't sleep, play, eat or any of her favourite things). All the other times she was fantastic. We even got through LAX in a peaceful and relatively painless daze.

And she is adjusting really well to the time difference too. She's already back on her normal schedule. She's sleeping well and adjusting to all the new people and environments really well. She's been far less jet-lagged than me, from the very beginning.

It's been a really lovely trip so far. Just catching up with family and a few old friends at home. Here are a few photos....it is really the mutual admiration society around here with the Grandparents!

Her first true encounter with the snow today - in my sister Loren's backyard. Oh dear, that was not a happy little Aussie! The worst part was just getting dressed for it! Out in the snow itself, she was... well, see for yourself. I wouldn't say it was traumatic, but she was not exactly impressed! We will have to ease her into it and try some strategies to entice her better for the next time. I'll let you know how it goes!

"Mama. Seriously. Can we just go in and get all these ridiculous things off now?"

Ok, I just looked at all these shots again, and realized that they aren't the smilliest pics of Sophie that we've ever seen. It has been impossible so far to get a photo of her smiling! But I assure you, she is well and content, and often very happy. I just don't seem to be able to get much photographic evidence of it - the happiest shots of her moving about keep turning out so fuzzy.

Happy weekends to all. Watch this space for more stories, and hopefully some better photos, coming soon :)

Walking

It's finally happening! Sophia has taken her first independent steps. Well, she's taken one step several times, and two steps a couple of times. She stands up in the middle of the floor all by herself, and congratulates herself with huge smiles and clapping. Then she plops down and laughs. Thank goodness for all that padding- there's a lot of falling in this stage! She walks to daddy and then turns around and...well, by that time she's usually so excited, giggling and laughing clapping, that's it's more falling than walking back to mama. But it's just so much fun to see her starting to let go of that one finger that she usually pulls all around the place, and start taking a step or two by herself. Watch out world! Another toddler on the loose!

She's loving swimming lessons too. Today she took her first few paddles swimming from the teacher to mama, all by herself. She was so proud!

And climbing! One of the great things she's learning from swimming lessons is to climb. We teach her to climb out of the pool - elbow, elbow, tummy, knee, other knee...yay! (Yes, it does take quite a bit of time!) And she's using that skill in other places now too - playgyms and parks, slides, small chairs...she gets a bit grumpy that she can't quite climb up on our couch by herself yet.

All of you lovely people in Minnesota that we're going to visit - we can't wait to see you. Only 19 more days now...and I am counting down! Any tips or suggestions for travelling ( a REALLY long way) by myself with an energetic toddler just beginning to walk? Any tips for packing, entertaining, preparing, etc? please post! Now, if only I could be motivated to write all my report cards and do all my school paperwork...when all I really want to do is play with my daughter and plan and prepare for the holidays! Any suggestions for that?!

And when is Thanksgiving? I'm lazy and don't have it on any of my Aussie calendars here. Isn't it next Thursday? Or did I already miss it? Anyway, wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving - whenever it is/was.
Loveyou,
alicia