more phases

Luckily, the streaking phase is somewhat lessening.  There are some tendencies she has that worry us, like focusing on how old everyone is.  It's almost to the point of obsession.  She asks it about animals, characters in books, every person we meet (ladies love this, I'm sure), and will sometimes ask it at times I think to ignore me.  Like I will ask, what did you do in P.E. today?" and she will ask "How old is Mrs. [pe teacher's name]?"  We can't help but worry that it is some sort of compulsive thing, but then again, maybe it's just that she has such a limited vocabulary and this was one of the first conversational things she learned and so it's something she just knows to do.  

Luckily, she's going through other phases that we're more excited about.  One that's pretty new is saying everything is Sophie.  The frog in the book is named Sophie.  The PotatoHead is Sophie.  The toy baby is Sophie.  Any picture of a little girl is Sophie, etc.

Also, she has a doll from Pottery Barn (the name of the doll actually is Sophie--how ironic--but I don't think she knows that) that she calls Sophie or baby Sophie.  So we call the doll Little Sophie now and our Sophie is big Sophie.  She carries Little Sophie around the house, has been taking her to bed with her, sitting her at the kitchen table with us.  Today, she went to the library with us.    

Another one is "Oops!"  We just got her saying it this week, and now she's actually using it in appropriate places and thinking it's funny.  She also likes to say "No way!" and joke about something so she can use it.  Like, how old is somebody?  If she knows that person is 12, she might say "One," and hold up one finger, then say, "No way!"

Something else is an interest in musical instruments.  There's an ipad app we have that shows lots of pictures of things and sounds they make.  One section is about musical instruments and she does that part a lot and listens to all the songs.  She says which ones she likes (saxophone, accordion, harmonica) and wants to know which we like.  Last week I bought her a set of toy instruments with a drum, tamborine, maracas, flute, whistle, and bells in it.  She's been marching around with the drum and setting up all her toy animals with different pieces to play.

Then, today at the library, she was looking at dvd's and I found one that was geared for 6mos-3years about musical instruments.  I said, "Sophie, do you want to get this one about music--"  "YES!"  She hadn't even seen it, so I showed her and said, "It has music instruments".  She reiterated, "Yes!"  When we got home, that was the one she wanted to watch.  Halfway through, she went running out and grabbed the toy flute and took it back to watch the show with and was playing it some.

This is definitely something she got from her mommy.  (Stephanie learned piano and also played flute in HS and the orchestra at Trinity)  We'll see how far it goes.

Sophie can read

We've suspected this for quite a while, but it's pretty much official.

A couple of weeks ago her teacher was telling me how they were doing some activity with word cards and she would ask Sophie for one, and she would hand it to the teacher (there are no pictures on them).  This was the week after we had noticed her making A's and H's out of her baby carrots at lunch time.  Last weekend when we were driving around, she was reading signs that she saw.  She does the same thing with posters in the library, she read "help" to me Saturday.  Then on Monday her teacher said she did some kind of reading test with her and it showed she was reading at a first grade level.

The thing is, it's hard to test because her speech is limited.  But we were picking up some flashcards tonight and I ran through all of them with her, picture side facing me.  She seemed to be pronouncing them correctly, to the best of her abilities, and I'd ask her for the sign language if I knew she knew it, or what color the item is just to double check.

Also, we have an ipad app that is for speech (it's called proloquo2go and is an augmentative alternative communication device, like what a stroke victim might use).  It allows you to add new buttons and has a keyboard view.  She has been able to spell her name on there for a long time. The other day I quizzed her and she spelled a lot of simple things, like boy, cat, dog, mama, dada.

Anyway, like I said, this doesn't surprise us as we've always known she was a smart little girl.  And she has always loved books.  She has known her alphabet since she was 2, maybe earlier.  We just wish her speech was coming along more quickly, but at least she is developing more understanding, even if she can't say it.  And this might actually help her communicate with us more via typing, who knows.

One slightly worrying thing is that next week we are moving her to a new school.  It is a church dayschool here in Euless that has classes from 2yo up to kindergarten.  I'll go into the why's more later, but when we were doing the tour this summer, the director was showing us the 3yo classroom.  They have the alphabet up along a wall of the room, and each letter has the corresponding animal (alligator, bear, cat, etc). The director was all excited about this program they have where they learn an animal hand motion for each one that helps them learn their letters and told us that by the end of the year, the child learns the whole alphabet.  We didn't say anything, but Stephanie and I were thinking "okay, what if she already knows that?"   Well, the main reason we're putting her there is for social stuff, not the curriculum, but we hope she's not bored by it.

"How is Sophie's eating going?"

We get this question a lot and we haven't talked about it here much lately and there have actually been some changes, so I thought I would do a post about it.  The first thing is that there weren't many changes, and that was a problem.  For pretty much a year, Sophie has been 23 pounds.  A 23 pound 2 year old is (very) low on the growth chart.  A 23 pound 3 year old has fallen off the growth chart.  Well, today, Sophie weighed 25 pounds 2 ounces at the GI doctor's office!  I'll talk about how we did that later, but it may take a while.  I could literally write a book about all the stuff we've been through, but I'll try to recap.

1. Age 3mos-15 months.   Sophie received all nutrition through her g-button.  She couldn't eat much at one time and she threw up, a lot.  Seriously, 10 times a day, seemingly everything of the 2 or 3 ounces we had just given her.  Another downside to this was that she got little oral motor development, which led to difficulties in eating and speaking.
2. At 15 months, we did an intensive daypatient feeding program, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for 4 weeks.  This taught Sophie how to spoonfeed and drink from a straw based on a reward system.  Literally, it was "I will offer you this spoon of puree and you have no choice but to eat it.  When you do, you get to watch a video and I will offer another spoon.  If you don't eat that, the video goes away.  When you take your bite, you get more reward."  This did 2 things: taught her to only eat when there's a video, and would get her to eat until she threw up.  I look back and I'm so sad about this.  But it did get to where we could get enough calories in her to only use the feeding tube at night.  
3. We continued the reward system and seeing the same therapists on an outpatient basis twice a week until Sophie was 2.5.  At around her 2nd birthday, she started eating solid foods.  She especially did well with crunchy things, like rice cakes.  Also, carrots and pecans.  (of course, carrots & rice cakes have very little calories).  But by last summer, she could eat a number of textures.   This was a very big development because before she would choke on many things and cough.  And if she coughs at all while there's stuff in her tummy, guess what?  Yup, it's all coming back out.  
4. We changed speech therapists last summer and worked on some new ideas about getting her to eat, but pretty much it still involved forcing/bribing/cajoling her to eat what was on her plate and depended on the reward of videos to keep her eating.  We also switched her to a gluten-free, dairy-free diet.  The reason for this is that she had a lot of developmental delays, and there are a lot of books that say that gluten and casein (a protein in milk) cause kids to be foggy and slow down their brain activity.  These are also the top 2 allergens on the American Association of Pediatrics list of inflammatory foods.  (Ever notice that on food packaging at the end of the long list of ingredients it will say in bold, "Contains wheat/milk/egg/soy"?)  Going off these things helps some people's digestion, and Sophie has always had constipation and tummy problems.  The issue was that the high-calorie formula we gave her at night was milk-based.  So we blended our own, but it couldn't be as rich and after a few hours it would separate, so she only got the watery stuff at the bottom and all the fats and proteins were left in the bag.
5. In January, around the time she turned 3, I read a book by a nutritionist named Ellyn Satter.  She outlined a new plan that Stephanie and I quickly saw as a way to make life less stressful for all of us.  It's the Division of Responsibility.  We would choose the what and when to eat and Sophie would have the choice of how much or even if she ate.  No more arguing.  No more "take one bite of this, then you get that."  No more bribing or begging or tears (from us or Sophie). This got us away from the videos, finally. (At speech therapy one day I had talked with a mom of a 5 year old boy who had been through all the programs we had gone through and gotten off his g-button.  I asked her how they got away from using the videos and she said, "Oh, we still do the videos."  We did not want to still be in that boat years from now.)   But we still had a lot of questions about the system that the book didn't answer, or we couldn't figure out.  Also, she hardly ever chokes or vomits anymore.  Whether that's because her abilities have improved or because we were not forcing her past the point of full, I'm not sure.
6. That brings us to the last stage.  In June, the GI doctor decided that he was finally concerned about Sophie's lack of weight gain.  He had blessed our experiments in #4 and #5 above.  Even though she was small, Sophie still is well-proportioned and has some meat on her bones, she's just tiny for her age (she still can wear 24 mo clothes, but 2T now fit and we're working up).  And she kept getting taller, which the dietitian said wouldn't happen if she were malnourished.  So back then he said he was okay if she didn't gain for 6mos or a year.  But then at the end of June, he said we should try to do something or we might have to go back to medications and testing. 

Thus, we came up with a 3-pronged approach: a) go back on dairy (if you want to lose weight, cut out everything in your diet with milk, cheese, whey, casein or lactose in it) and b) find a feeding behavioralist to help us, which also led to c) do some tube feeding during the day again.

So we think that a) & c) have led to the new gains we've seen.  She's gained over a pound in a month, basically, which the dr was very happy with.  There are downsides, though.  Stephanie and I both think we noticed that after going back on dairy, Sophie became more foggy for a while.  She seemed less attentive and just a little more spacey.  This also coincided with a period of bad sleep where she would not go to sleep until after 10 and I would have to drag her out of bed in the mornings for school.  But sleep is a whole 'nother post.  So maybe she was just tired.  And she's been better the past week or two.  

The other problems are that we weren't really doing the division of responsibility correctly and that tube feeding may be causing her to eat less by mouth.  We weren't giving her enough control.  The behavioralist recommended doing family-style meals, so Sophie can put only what she wants on her plate.  (we try to always present one thing that we know she will eat--but sometimes our guess is not right).  Sometimes she may eat only ketchup, or 1 bite of something, and say "all done".  And we have to take this huge leap of faith and let her do it without scolding or commenting on it or offering something else or vice-versa praising when she does eat.  But this time the backup plan was that after each meal at home that she didn't get enough calories, we'd supplement with a quick tube feed, so as not to miss an opportunity.  

And Sophie still has a problem with the volume she can consume, we've discovered.  After we started the supplemental tube feeds in the daytime again, we discovered that the max she can take at one time is 4 oz. (since we haven't been forcing her lately, we hadn't noticed)   And that is iffy.  On an empty stomach, 4oz might still cause her to vomit sometimes, and if she has eaten or drank some before, 4oz is almost guaranteed to cause an eruption.  And 4oz is such a small amount (she should be able to take 10-12oz the doctor says) and she has to have a break before she can eat again.  Especially in the morning--when she first wakes up, her tummy is just not working and it's hard to just get some meds and cereal in.  So if you do the math of how much she can handle at one time * how few opportunities are there if you need a 2-3 hour break between to digest * how many calories in the formula, you can quickly come up short of the amount of calories she needs to consume in one day to maintain her weight, much less catch up and gain.  (to maintain she now needs 950 calories and for gain it is recommended 1140-1250)  On an ideal day, it's hard.  When you have someone who has had such difficult experiences with eating and who can't keep food down, it can become something you obsess about.  

But today was good.  The doctor is pleased and we are pleased.  Basically, the division of responsibility will work eventually, but it's hard right now.  We have faith in it and we know that it might take years to get her on track, but we can't see any other way to do it that won't cause some kind of eating complex down the road.  The limited volume isn't even that big a problem since she did gain this time. So then the question is can we find a high calorie alternative that is milk-free? We and the dietitian are looking into that.  Hopefully we can come up with something.  If not, it might still be worth staying on dairy and just power through it to grow her some.  She might get big enough to just outgrow it.  

Anyway, that's some of what's going on with her eating.  I didn't even get into all of it, but I'm sure it's more than most wanted to hear.   Yer fault for askin'.   :-)  And if you see Sophie at a mealtime or snack, whether she is or isn't eating what's in front of her, or no matter how weird or inappropriate the food she has may seem, the easiest thing for all of us is if you please just don't comment on it.  I'm not trying to be rude, but it's the best thing.  And we'd rather not talk about it in front of her because she is aware of that now.  Believe me when I say we know what is going on with her.  

Gold Medal

Well, today was Sophie's last day of gymnastics.  She and Stephanie took a 4 week, "Mommy & Me" class at the city rec center.  Sophie loved it, and loved the idea of it.  After the first day, she would say "More gymnastics", which sounds like "mah gimnafuh" when she says it, all week until the next class.  Luckily, at school they do calendar time and days of the week, so she could understand when we said not til next Monday.  Today as we were driving home from school in the car, she said "mommy me go gymnastics", but I hadn't mentioned it to her and Stephanie said she hadn't either last night or this weekend.  So I guess when they did calendar time this morning, Sophie realized it was Monday and must have gone nuts.

Anyway, I haven't attended the class, but Stephanie said they had a lot of fun.  There's only one other little girl in the class (and of course they both got gold medals today), but neither of them seem to mind.  There's kids' music, dancing, and they do somersaults, which Sophie loves.  And jumping and climbing.  All things right up Sophie's alley.

Here's the sad part, though.  After Sophie's heart surgeries, the cardiologist told us she would not have any restrictions, except for--and this is the only thing she mentioned--gymnastics.  (Sophie, honey, if or when you read this, I'm sorry.)  So next, we'll probably do swim classes again, and maybe enroll her in a dance class after that.  It's not like she's going to be doing vaulting flips in toddler gymnastics, but we're just thinking that it will be harder to quit later.

And maybe it's just the idea of going to the class and having something to look forward to that she enjoys.  She was kind of the same way last year about swim class.

A difficult Easter

We haven't posted lately I know, but should be back in the swing of things now.  Stephanie was super busy for tax season, but she weathered it well.  Then we went down to San Antonio for a 4 day Easter weekend.   Both my brothers were there, as well as my sister-in-law and Sophie's cousin Troy.  He is now 6 mos old. He is getting so big and checking everything out.  He's almost sitting up and crawling.  Sophie would just laugh and squeal at him.  She gave him lots of hugs and kisses (and kept trying to touch and grab his face). He spent a lot of time just watching her and seeing what she was doing.  I think they are going to have many great times together.

We went to my grandmother's (on my dad's side) house Saturday.  Sophie and Troy got to see their Great Grandma.  She had been diagnosed with cancer in March and it had already spread pretty aggressively.  But she was so excited that she was going to get to see Troy for the first time and was really looking forward to it.  So excited that Brad and Shelly had to take him over there a few days early so she could meet him Thursday.  Saturday she was weak and couldn't get out of bed, but the whole family turned out and she got to see everybody.  It was hard for her to talk much, but I could tell she understood what we were telling her, and she did ask me a few questions.   And she got to see Troy again, at his super cutest, and Sophie sat next to her and told her hi.  Later, Sophie had wagon rides and an easter egg hunt, but she had been up since 5am and was pretty droopy, so we headed back to my parents house mid-afternoon.

The next day we went to my mom's side for Easter.  Everybody had a good time.  There was a piñata, which Sophie took a few hits at and thought was hilarious, another easter egg hunt (this one with many more and much older contestants, but Sophie got a head start), and lots of bbq.

Sunday evening we were back at my parents house watching TV when my uncle called for my dad.  He said that Grandma had passed away.  I think she used up all her energy making it until she could see everyone, and then she just let go.  When we left her house Saturday, I told Stephanie that I had a feeling we wouldn't see Grandma again and that I thought I was okay with that.  She had always been so sharp and full of energy, and nobody wanted her to have to suffer or be in a state where she couldn't talk or be coherent.

The funeral was Wednesday.  We all decided to just stay down there for another 2 days instead of going home and then coming back.  In the meantime, Stephanie and I took Sophie to the Kiddie Park on Tuesday, and she had a fantastic time.  It was really a great experience for her, and it deserves its own post, with some pictures.

I don't know how to wrap this post up, so I'm just going to post a few pictures of Sophie and my grandmother.  The first one is the first time Grandma met Sophie.  She came in and didn't even say hi to me, just "Where's the baby?  I want to hold the baby!" and Sophie just looked at her like, "Wow, who is this?"  The second one is when she came up to visit us a few weeks before Sophie's first Christmas.  And the last one is from this January at Grandma's 90th birthday party.

fishin' pond

Today, Sophie, Uncle Brent and I took a trip to Bass Pro Shop in Grapevine.  Every Saturday morning they have kids fishin' pond.  There's a lady that has a cart full of little rods, a tackle box, and worms, and she leads everyone out to a pond with a little fishing pier they have outside.  We didn't catch anything but Sophie had a great time, though was a little bored with the act of fishing itself.  She was talking about it all morning and was excited just to see the worm and the fish the other people caught.  A few pulled pretty good sized bass out of the pond!   She also enjoyed the aquarium they have inside and some of the displays.  Oh, and climbing in and out of all the boats.  I'm sure the salesmen loved that.

mama llama

So this is currently Sophie's favorite song.  Which means that I'm sick of it and it's constantly stuck in my head, so I thought I'd share it with the rest of you so you too can see how catchy it is.



It actually sounds more like a country western song than a kids song.  Sophie loves it though.  When it's over, she says "ma ma yayayayama".  (p.s. she doesn't love llamas in general, just this song)

Escape artist

So a few days ago the day we've been dreading arrived: Sophie climbed out of her crib.  It was in the evening before she had gone to sleep for the night.  Stephanie put her back in and told her she needed to stay in the crib, lay down, and go to sleep.  And Sophie did.  We have a friend whose little boy climbed out once and then didn't do it anymore, and we're hoping that's the case here.  

Her crib actually can convert into a toddler bed, but we haven't done this yet because Sophie still has her g-button and we do tube feedings overnight.  And if she were to wake up and try to walk off, she wouldn't think to disconnect the tube first.  

The other thing that she's started doing reliably now is opening the door from the kitchen to the garage.  Frequently this is after she gets the idea that she wants to ride the bicycle.  For now, we'd been making sure to keep the exterior garage doors shut.  But today I put a little latch up high to keep her from opening it.  We figured this was easier than the childproof doorknob covers.  Luckily she can't open our front or back doors yet because she can't reach the handles.  

speech

So far Sophie is saying the following:

• mama
• dada (sometimes pronounced gaga)
• bye bye (buh buh, can also mean baby)
• hi
• grandma (guh-muh!  she always adds the emphasis)
• more (mah)
• blue (buh)

We're working on 

• yes
• dog
• bug

Right now she has a lot of "soft" sounds.  So her vowel sounds are 'ah', 'uh', 'ih' "eh", and not a long a/e/i/o/u.  Mostly she makes 'b' and 'd' consonants.  Sometimes 'g', although it's frequently a 'd', and she does 'f' for both f and s.  She just started 'n' this week, and we're hearing 'yayaya' and 'lalalala' so hopefully y & l are soon.

The most frustrating thing for us is the yes & no situation.  Before she started talking, she had reliable sign language for yes/no and then had learned to shake her head no and was just learning nod your head yes.  Well, after she started speaking, she only wants to say yes & no, and unfortunately they both sound like "deh".  This has been a HUGE step backwards as far as functional communication.  We're excited that she wants to use her voice and recognizes that this is the easier more accepted way, but this has been a lot of frustration for all of us.  Her speech therapist has her working on breaking down yes into its letters.  Sophie doesn't have y yet, so she says "ehh fff" and is starting to do it somewhat regularly for affirmative.

The weird thing is that when she was 1, she could say 's' easily.  We'd ask what does a snake say and she'd go "sssssss", or what does Sophie start with: "sssss".  But around the time she turned 2, she lost it.

Her favorite thing is bye bye though.  She wants to say it to someone as soon as she meets them.  She wants to say it to any bird, animal, etc we see, even inanimate objects.  At school she is now the greeter.  There's a chime on the door, and when she hears it she has to stop and see who's coming in.  And she's more interested in the parents and figuring out for each kid if it's their mommy or daddy that brings them and picks them up.  When we're out in public, any lady she sees is a mama and a man is a dada.  

It's slow going, but it's still so exciting for us.

Bike Riders

This is the neatest bicycle seat.  I'd never seen one like it before, but we found it on amazon.  It's nice because Sophie is in front and can see everything.  We got it at Christmas time, but just got it installed last month.  The first day, we went out and she seemed to like it, then after that she absolutely did not want to ride any more.  After a few weeks, though, she finally asked to ride it again and now wants to go out every day, especially after we stopped at the playground on one ride.  That was probably a dangerous precedent to set. 

Day 3

Tomorrow is day 3 of school closure due to the ice storm we had Tuesday morning. It hasn't gotten out of the 20s and won't til Friday afternoon. Hopefully there won't be a day 4, as I'm not sure who's going more stir crazy: Sophie or Stephanie!

We also had to cancel a dr's appointment that we'd scheduled months ago for Tuesday. And of course their next available appointment is the end of March.

Talking!

Stephanie and I have been giving this a lot of thought over the last week or so, and we think Sophie might have a word!  Or two, actually.  She started making a 'b' sound after her birthday, and at school they worked on reinforcing it every chance they could.  And we would practice it at home for her.  We think she is now saying bye bye.  She also will try to say baby, blue, and bear.  Anyway, they've been working on it and she's been doing good and reproducing the sounds, but we've been trying not to get our hopes up too much because we have probably gone through 3 or 4 times when Sophie has picked up a new sound, made it for a week or so, and then lost it.  But I think with them working on it so much at school and her going 5 days a week now (have I mentioned that yet?  we made her "full time" in January), it may stick.  They also reported one day that she attempted to say each letter of the alphabet and made some sort of sound for all of them.  And they have a "bye bye" song they sing everyday when each kid leaves, and Sophie loves it.  We sing bye bye to lots of different people names and animals everyday.

So, back to her speaking.  She's just recently started doing a good "mama" and today did it spontaneously when she went into the office and saw Stephanie sitting there.  Byebye she hasn't done without prompting yet, I don't think.  Also, every time we have snack or mealtime in her booster seat, she would sign all done at the end.  I started asking her to do an 'a' & 'd' sound for it, and she says "ahh duh".  This evening she did that spontaneously, too, after she finished her supper.  To say we are excited about this is an understatement.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Sophie!

We are very excited that Sophie is 3.  And we are even more excited that Sophie is excited that she is turning 3.  She seems to get the concept.  She went to a birthday party last month and we've been working on just the whole idea of birthdays for a while.  She has a Signing Times video about birthdays, we've got a couple storybooks about birthdays from the library, this week we made a little picture calendar of all the school days leading up to her party, we had a practice cake, we've tried blowing out candles, we wear party hats, and we've been singing the song.  So I think she's ready.   If anything, I'm afraid she'll be letdown after it's over.

Friday at school we took some cupcakes and they had a little party at snacktime, including presenting Sophie with the Birthday Crown.  She was so excited about it, she didn't take it off til we got home.  And this is the little girl who doesn't like clips, barrettes and rubber bands in her hair.

We're a little afraid that 3 might be worse than 2.  We hear that's often the case.  Sophie wasn't terrible at two, but she's getting a little bit of a 'tude about her sometimes.  Like she is going through a hitting phase.  It's so cute, though, that it's hard for Stephanie and I not to laugh when she hits us.  Instead we do "hand timeouts" with her, and this seems to be helping.  But for the most part, she is super sweet and has a great disposition.

Christmas pics

I know, Christmas break is over and I still haven't put any pictures up.  Here's a few.  We went down to San Antonio for the holiday.  Stephanie was able to take off the whole week between it and New Years, plus had the 23rd and 24th off.  So we stayed down there for 4 or 5 days.  The bad news was that Sophie got sick (again) the day before we went down.  She had a fever and sniffles and coughing, and pretty much couldn't eat anything for a few days.  Hopefully, she didn't get anyone else sick.  We got her on antibiotics right away this time and she's been pretty much back to normal for the last few days.  

Sophie got a bunch of great new toys and other gifts.  This was needed, since her birthday is so close after Christmas that by the time they get here, it's been a long dry spell.  Maybe this year we will actually keep some of them unopened until July, like we talked about doing last year.  I'm still not sure she gets what day Christmas is and doesn't get excited about it before hand, but she's definitely getting the hang of opening presents.  We've been talking up her birthday, though, and she seems to get that idea a little better.  Plus I made a little calendar of this week showing her remaining school days and then Saturday with a cake and hats.  We'll see if she gets the crossing off the days as they go by.  

Anyway, back to Christmas.  The weather down there was nice, and after Sophie got to feeling better, she started enjoying the outside.  The swing is at my Grandma's house.  Who knows how long it's been there?  I swang on it when I was a little kid, and it was old and rusty then!  Still works though.  Stephanie spent at least a half hour pushing.  We're excited that Sophie can sit on big kid swings now, instead of having to be in the baby "bucket" ones.  

One day we went to the Kiddie Park again.  We'd been once before when Sophie was real small.  This time she was pretty frightened of the carousel and didn't want to be there.  She's very sensitive to noises and gets overwhelmed in loud public places easily.  But we walked around and I told her we were just looking around.  We looked at the boat ride, but she didn't like that.  Then we watched some little girls riding the airplane ride, but she was still not interested.  Then we walked by the little car ride and I said there's the cars, and she signed Yes.  I said you want to ride the cars?  And she signed yes again.  So we stood in line and bought a ticket and I asked what color she wanted to ride? (to keep the interest up before she chickened out) and she signed the blue car.  So she got on it with one other little girl and they started it up.  I won't say she was thrilled about it, but she didn't freak out and she waved at us the first 3 or four times around.  After that, I think she was ready to get off, but she did good and waited til the end.    Stephanie, my mom, and I talked it up about how great she did.  And all the rest of the day she kept signing car and horsie.  And now she loves looking at the pictures, so I think we'll have to go every time we're down there and try to get her more used to it.   

Lots going on

Well, Stephanie and I made it back from our trip Saturday evening.  We were very happy to see Sophie.  When we walked in, it took her a few seconds to figure out what was different, then she just ran around screeching when she realized we were home.  I've had times when I've been out of town for a few days and I walk back in and she didn't notice I was gone, it seems like, so it was good to be missed.

We had a great time on our trip, except that both of us were suffering from colds and I'm still fighting a cough.  And it sounds like Sophie did very well staying with Mimi and then my parents the rest of the week.  I really can't say what a big deal it was to us that our parents were willing to watch Sophie for that long and how grateful we were to have some time away together.

Sunday we all went to a birthday party from Sophie's school who is turning 4.  It was at a bouncy house place.  Sophie didn't want to go when we said we were going to a "party", but when we said go play with your friends she agreed to it.  She had a very good time.  She is pretty much fearless and climbed up some big bouncy things to go down the slide.  More than once I heard somebody else's parent tell their kid, "look, Sophie's going on it" (she is by far the smallest one in her class).  And then a girl who is at school one day a week with Sophie showed up at the party.  She and her little sister love Sophie and they pretty much just followed her around the rest of the time.  Sophie sat next to them while eating snacks and cake, too.

After that, I went to the doctor and got some amoxicillin and then Monday after school I took Sophie to the pediatrician.  She was a little upset when I told her where we were going, but she did very well when the doctor came in and examined her.  He and I were both impressed that she wasn't anywhere near as scared as before.  Sophie has been sniffly for 2 weeks and we didn't want it to get worse and have her be sick all winter, like last year.  She got some amoxicillin, too, so hopefully that will knock out whatever she's got, so it doesn't turn into ear infections.

It seems like she has been a little less vocal since we got back home, and that could be just because she's under the weather.  But she is doing a reliable 'b' sound for now.  Also, she is starting to learn how to spell things.  My mom brought her a new chalkboard that also has magnetic letters of the alphabet that stick on it.  Sophie and I were playing with it and I asked her what starts with 'a' and she signed apple.  Then I asked her 'b' and she signed bear.  Then cat, dog, elephant (her favorite), frog, gorilla, all the way up to horse.  Stephanie and I just looked at each other with a "where did she learn that?" on our faces.  Likewise, if you ask her what letter a word starts with, she does a pretty good job of picking the letter off the chalkboard.

Another exciting thing is that she's using multiple word signs now.  For example, yesterday we were laying on her blanket for rest time (naps are hard to come by, but I still try to do a quiet rest time most days).  We were singing a song with an animal book.  When we got to the elephant, she realized she didn't have her elephant doll that her Grampa got her this week.  So she signed "want elephant" and I let her go get it from the other room and come back.  It seems like a small thing, but her speech therapist at school has been working on this kind of thing with her for a few weeks now, and it's exciting to see Sophie applying it.

But maybe the thing Stephanie and I are most happy about is that yesterday Sophie pointed at something.  She points at things in books or right in front of her by touching them with her finger, but yesterday she pointed at a book on the floor a good 3 or 4 feet away and wanted it.  This is a big deal for us because it is a basic developmental milestone that Sophie has never done.  And then at dinner last night we were sitting at the dinner table and she pointed at my plate.  We were having steak, salad, and sweet potatoes, and I thought she maybe just wanted to know what each one was.  But she wanted to try my steak.  So I gave her a little piece and then she wanted more.  We were thrilled about this because we are always trying to get her to eat more meat and proteins.  Meats are a difficult texture, though, and she usually will push them away.

So all in all, some good things are happening.

Hiatus

No updates for at least a week (I know, like I ever post more than once a week). Sophie is spending time with all of her grandparents, and Stephanie and I are heading to the Bahamas! Hopefully we all have fun.

Climbing higher

Just when we thought Sophie was getting good at stairs and slides and we wouldn't have to stand an arm's length from her at the playground anymore, she started climbing ladders.  She is really good at it, too, for someone who is less than 3 feet tall.  She climbs straight ones, arched ones, short ones, ones taller than my head, whatever.  Every week for the last month after speech therapy, we've stopped at a park in Bedford.  One day I got tired of having to stand guard as she climbed the big tall ladder, so I told her that was enough.  She was not happy about that at all.

We have been hearing a lot of improvements in her speech and vocalization lately.  She is babbling much more.  Lots of googoogeegeegaagaa (that's a direct quote).  And this week she started lots of high pitched screeching.  Actually, I first noticed it coming home on the airplane.  I'm sure the other 100 people noticed too.  When she would start kicking the seat in front of her, which we had arranged with the ticket counter for Stephanie to sit in, I'd say "quiet feet".  This is something they do in school when she starts slapping or something, they say "quiet hands".  Except every time I'd say it, she'd respond with a good screechy.  We've still not gotten her to reliably reproduce many sounds, but she will do it sometimes.  Especially laughing.  They got her doing this at school.  So one of us will laugh, then she will do a little chuckle, and we'll do it back and forth.

We had the evaluation with the school district, and they said she is eligible to start in their preschool program when she turns 3.  This is good and bad.  Good to have the services available.  Bad A) that she is behind enough to need them and B) now we have to evaluate wether we want to leave the private school that she is currently at.  But they invited us to come observe one day, so Stephanie and I are going to do that soon, to see if their program is comparable.  

BTW, her school, which is a non-profit, only has one fundraiser a year and it is selling Christmas cards.  They have a 12 pack of cards, one done by each kid at the school, that costs $10.  Sophie's is especially cute.  If anyone is interested, email us.

Halloween in CT

We just got back today from a trip to Connecticut. This was Sophie's first trip on an airplane and she did great. Well, there was some fussing, but it's still 3 hours sitting in one place, even on a direct flight. We got to visit Uncle Bradley and Aunt Shelly and to meet our new nephew/cousin Troy.  Sophie was very interested in him, after seeing lots of pictures for the past 3 weeks, and was very interested in what he was doing.

 It also happened to be Halloween, and Sophie got to go trick-or-treating in their neighborhood and actually not be hot while wearing a costume.  She received a few packs of M&Ms and decided that she really liked those.  She also enjoyed watching the other kids as they came to the door and would wave goodbye to them and then help shut the door.    Definitely a fun weekend.

New Cousin!

Sophie got a new cousin this week!  Troy was born on Oct 6, 2010.  The new mom and dad are very proud.  They report that he is very alert and interested in looking around and checking everybody out.  Sophie was very excited about seeing his picture and hearing his name.  Hopefully, we will all be able to go to Connecticut to visit them someday soon.  Congratulations, Brad & Shelly!

1st Beach Trip!

So this past weekend we went to San Antonio, since Stephanie had a 3 day weekend to celebrate the end of the tax season.  We went down there Thursday afternoon.  Then Friday morning we got up early and drove to Port Aransas to see a specialist.  After that, we had lunch and then went to the beach to play in the surf.  Sophie had a fantastic time!  This was kind of like climbing stairs and swinging at the same time.  She looks like a drunken sailor here at first, but then she picked it up.  But she kept wanting to wade out further as each wave receded, and then pretty soon the next wave would knock her down.   Conditions were great, we had the whole place to ourselves, and the water was nice and warm.  I guess right after that, the tropical storm from Mexico blew in because it rained on us all the way home and Corpus got 4" of rain that afternoon.

We'll definitely be making this a part of our SA trips in the future, I'm sure.