What I did on my summer vacation......

Hey everyone!

We had a great summer and Sophie did so much growing and changing....she is getting so big and she learns something new every day.

In July she started to get up on her hands and knees and loved to play on her tummy...around this time we got her into a little kiddie pool at her grandma and Jiji's house.....she absolutely loved it. I watched her dip her face into the water and come up with a look of surprise on her face....then I was surprised to watch her do it again....and again....without fear. She's so crazy sometimes how she will just do something she's never done before and not be afraid. She inspires me to try to be more brave.

In August, we went to a cottage up north and spent a whole week relaxing and playing with lots of Sophie's cousins. She loves to watch kids play. She gets so excited - it's like you can see the fire in her that makes her want to get up and run and join in the games. Sophie loved relaxing and having afternoon naps in the hammock under the tree. It was the first time I traveled with a baby...difficult, but fun. Daddy had to stay behind to work so it was really hard for him to have his first week away from his girls.

I've been counting the days down to getting back to work, not gleefully, but with some hope that I can regain some of my spirit from being able to do more creative work all day. It has been hard to draw or paint or design much with a busy girl in the house. She wasn't doing great napping, either...until this month. Suddenly it's like she is on a perfect nap schedule and I have some time in the day to myself that I can count on. I'm really glad for this, because she needs the rest to grow, and because when she goes to her Grandma's (who is THANK GOD taking care of her for us when I go back to work) she will be on a pretty good schedule.

Sophie loves to pet the kitty...and to our amazement, Ophie (the cat) takes what she can get. So, ear pulling, eye poking and even spitting up on the fur has become tolerable to our kitty.

We haven't been to the doctor for a long time...mostly because everything is perfectly normal and she is doing so well. I think she must weigh about 12 pounds or so, and she has doubled her intake of solid food in the past week! She loves her peas, squash and yams....not so much my homemade applesauce (reacted with a choking sound and then spit it out and stuck her tongue out) but we try lots of new things all the time. She loved the avocado/banana concoction I gave her for lunch the other day, and I've never seen anyone gobble up swiss chard faster than her. She finally learned (thanks to Grandma R) to open her mouth for the spoon, so feeding her has become much easier and cleaner...no more fighting for the spoon. She does, however, try to drink her food from the bowl.

Last week, Sophie's rocking and backwards push style crawl was replaced with an honest to goodness, hands and knees coordinated - I'm going over there and you can't stop me - crawl. She hasn't stopped since. We knew this was going to happen but I still get a little pang in my heart when I see how quickly she is growing up and moving and getting more and more independant.

I am so proud of her. She is just such a force. One day Kie and I watched her reaching for something that seemed impossibly out of reach for her little arms...she didn't give up and just kept grabbing and grabbing until finally she managed to graze it with her fingers. This determination and strength is probably what kept her alive and fighting through the pregnancy and her extremely early beginning. I told Kie that we should have named her Will.

I am greeted every morning by her gigantic smile and big dimples (like daddy's). She has even (please knock on wood for me) started to sleep 12 hours lately. She's leaping and bounding right to her first birthday....less than one month away.