As Sophie nears her 18-month birthday, I wanted to sit down and reflect on all of her beauty.
Words cannot adequately express the absolute JOY and FUN that Sophie adds to our lives. She is a chatterbox and, if I do say so myself, she has a huge vocabulary. She repeats anything....trust me, I learned the hard way. We always assumed that Doug would teach her the first swear word. Lo and behold, the English teacher did it....She has the sweetest, littlest voice that pronounces words fairly clearly. She will imitate hand motions to songs ("Itsy, Bitsy Spider"), mimic my body language (hands on my hips, cupping my ear to hear the airplane), and copy all phrases we use! One of her favorite words right now is the word "tunnel" because we drive through them a lot. I taught her to identify the tunnel and say "POP!" when our car pops out on the other side. But, she has figured out that if she climbs through Daddy's legs, that can be a tunnel, too. If she crawls under the table, that's another tunnel and another excuse to say "POP!" It's pretty darn adorable. Doug even made her a fort with a bench, some pillows, and a big blanket. She enjoyed running through this fort-tunnel.
Sophie identfies EVERYTHING that she sees. She hasn't figured out that adjectives go before nouns, so a typical run in our neighborhood sounds something like this: "Car! Blue!" or "Bu (bus) Purple!" or "Na (snack) Ophie!" She will even do it to body parts ("Whiker (whisker) Oo-wee (Louie)" or "Cheek Mommy."
We're doing collages and basic crafts. I framed an E-ta (Easter) collage that we did. She will point to it and say "Ophiedidit" (all one word) to distinguish that she did in fact create the centerpiece in our dining room.
Sophie loves to play in her crib, dump out everything from drawers or tubs, and give her famous stink face whenever we ask for a smile!
Sophie's independent personality shines! The amount of animals and babies that she hoards in her crib, in the car, on errands, etc., is expanding by the day. D and I may need to stage a hoarding intervention!! Each animal has a name and a size distinction (ex. "Baby Ea-ta" (Easter) vs. "Mommy Ea-ta" distinguish the little Easter bunny from her bigger Easter bunny. She nurtures them all with food, drinks, blankets, hugs, books, etc.
Sophie loves to say her name--O-phie. If I'm reading a book that she wants to read by herself, she'll say "Ophie." We had a play date last week and she walked around the playroom, pointing to all her toys saying "Ophie" so that the other child knew they were HERS.
We've been working on the alphabet and so far, she can identify many letters, but her favorite is "W"--I won't even attempt to type out the sound she makes for that letter. Just trust me that it's a great letter! We've also noticed that with help, she can count to 10! For some reason, she always skips five, but she knows what a high-5 is. Another trick is the ability to say "one mo (more)" and "notherone (another one)". Tonight, as we were reading a book, she saw a purple dot. She said "Purple" and then pointed to a 2nd purple dot and said "notherone". When she found a 3rd purple dot, she said "one mo."
Sophie forgets nothing. One time, about 3 months ago, Doug hit his head on the light above the dining room table. Yesterday, we had friends over and Sophie pointed to the light, said "Owie Daddy".
While Doug and I are at work, she spends time with our friend Erica, who nannies for us, and her son, Connor. Sophie LOVES Connor and tries to be as wild and active as he is. Lately, she has been a daredevil who climbs on everything, runs backward, and spins in circles until she's dizzy. My grandmother calls her a monkey.
She's already trying to get out of trouble. She rammed her baby's stroller (baby ro-ro) into the cat. We told her that Louie had an owie, and she needed to be gentle, give him a kiss, and say sorry. She shook her head, said "no" and pointed to the stroller. She said "ro-ro owie". She was either accusing Louie of hurting her stroller or she was blaming the stroller itself for Louie's pain (as opposed to taking responsibility as the driver of the stroller). Either way, she ended up saying sorry to Louie.
Sophie is obsessed with anything that moves--cars, airplanes, helicopters, buses, trucks, tractors. Sophie loves all YouTube videos that include cats. She knows how to unlock my iPhone and open up every app that she shouldn't... She requests songs. "Tinkle Tinkle" (Twinkle, Twinkle) is her favorite. "b-b-b-b" (ABCD....) and "YA-ya-O (Old MacDonald) are always runners up.
She has become this little person who wears tennis shoes, who chooses her clothes, who remembers names of her friends, who hates vegetables, who laughs at herself, who makes us laugh, who actually enjoyed her first time out, who is obsessed with hopping, who still loves to snuggle, who has beautiful brown eyes and a sassy, sassy face!
I want to bottle up all of her 18-month old cuteness and keep it forever, and yet, I'm so excited to see how she'll continue to develop. I don't want her to grow up so fast, but I am also intrigued to experience all the stages of her life.
We love you, Ophie.
I am thankful for my wonderful mom who modeled the characteristics of grace, love, and selflessness that I try to emulate with my own daughter.
