Moments of adoration

Sophia knows how to press my buttons - whether they are all intentional or just a fact of being 3 years old - is besides the point. 

The good news is, the frustrations are far outweighed by the tender, sentimental moments of watching her grow, learn and blossom into a little girl. 

Top 5 things currently that make me smile: 

5) Watching her comb her dad's hair tonight and telling him that "he looks beautiful now" in a very serious voice. 

4) How she won't let Dave or I leave the house without taking our "ice cream" with us to work.

3) How she lines up her animals in different formation surrounding her barn. (note: these are not all traditional farm animals, so seeing who gets to hang with who is rather Noah's Ark-ish)

2) Having her help me make salad with me and actually learning how to properly (with my hand guiding) use a knife. (and testing out the different veggies we put in!)

1) Reading with her. A favorite book is "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats. Tonight, she was able to identify almost all the letters in the title & author's name. Absolutely amazing and fascinating to watch the cognitive development. And it just makes me so proud. 

Baa Baa Black Sheep

A quick video from Sophia - her rendition of "Baa Baa Black Sheep"

My amazing three year old

Some how, some way, my amazing, incredible, sweet (and sometimes patience-trying) Sophia has turned 3 years. 1,096 days old. I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday. Maybe a lot of the stuff in between has faded a little, but every day we are making new memories.

We celebrated the big day with friends and family, and of course, a fabulous Mickey Mouse cake (and Mickey's clubhouse themed birthday!)

The day started off with our yearly tradition of hanging and examining the banner of the year's pictures.

Nana & Pop Pop came up for reading and playtime before the party began. 

Then, the party started. Here's Sophia& Frances - both born on November 7th. 

Wow - have they grown from last year. 

And of course, the customary shake down from Dad.

 Snuggle time from Grandma:

A little dance party!

And finally - birthday cake time.

Happy Birthday my big girl!!

8 months of Theo

Hard to believe that the little guy has been around for 8 months (more now that I actually write this.)
Theo is rapidly becoming "not so little" each and every day.

His helmet is really helping round out his head - at his last check up, he's around 95% (he started at 102% and the goal is 92%). Hoping we'll be at our mark around the new year. Recent growth spurts have really helped the cause.

He and Sophia have been interacting even more. It's generally around him go after some of her toys on the floor, which displeases her greatly, but we're working on the sharing thing.
In terms of his mobility, he is fully locked crawling in reverse. He can pitch himself forward from a sitting position to all fours, but isn't quite sure what to do from that point. He also quite enjoys sitting and pulling up on things, so we'll see.

Food wise, he's eating like a champ. Still doing 5 feedings, plus 3 solid meals a day. We do a mix of purees (I gave up the notion of making all his food. He gets much better variety and tastier stuff thanks to my new best friends at Plum Organics!) He also love eating cooked egg yolks, advocado, yogurt and eyeballs anything and everything we're eating. Pieces of bread and cheese are making their way on his list. Not quite there with the pincer grasp yet.

Sleep is still going well. He's such an all around happy baby - nap times (2 naps each day usually) are easy and bed time is a solid routine, which includes a bath every night because of the helmet. I couldn't ask for anything more in that department. Well, maybe if he slept in until 6 more regularly. The 5:30/5:45 is rough some days.

I'm so lucky to have this wonderful, amazing son. His personality is really starting to show - he's thoughtful, smiley when you give him just a little attention, but completely content in his own land. He adores his sister and thumps happily when I walk into his room to get him up from sleeping or when I come home from work. The joy on his face is priceless and unconditional love. He's my happy little man.

Next check up is in December with the pediatrician, but he is clearly a happy, healthy, growing little boy!

Hurricane Potty Training

I've always envied those moms who said "Oh, potty training took us the weekend" or "She just 'Got' it" or, as some of my more militant friends went the "He's 2. We trained. That's what we do" route.
For Sophia, I knew it would come. I wanted it to happen. We had the seat, bought the M&Ms but couldn't really connect all the pieces.

Admittedly, some parts of parental laziness clearly played a role - I had no desire to sit inside all day on a perfectly gorgeous Saturday to train when we could be outside running around.  At the end of the summer, I signed her up for a town program that required kids to be potty trained, with the hair brained idea I could make it happen in 2 weeks.  Ha...good thing they gave a refund.

So around came Hurricane Sandy. Stuck inside all day. What a better time to give it a go. And magically (and I choose that word precisely because that's what I attribute all the stars aligning) it worked. After running around for an hour or two with no pants, out came the "Mama, I have to go potty." To the potty she went and it worked. So she got a load of praise, two M&Ms - red & brown, and stamps for her "Potty Chart" (aka a lame piece of paper with a grid drawn on it taped to the wall). Bam, another time before bed. This is pretty cool.

It's been a week now, with only 1 accident (completely attributable to parental rushing out the door) and even managed to get comfy with #2. We've switched to pull ups for sleeping times. Hopefully, this continues as well as it is going.
I'm so proud of my little girl - of the smile on her face after success.

Hooray and sigh... My toddler is officially a little girl.

Minnies & Mickeys & Giraffes - Oh My!

I've been a little neglectful on the posts lately, but I think of that as a good thing, as we've been living life and doing a ton of activities.

Halloween was last week and Sophia had been looking forward to it for weeks. She was definitely into this year, dressing up as Minnie Mouse (much to the chagrin of her father, as he believes Halloween is all about being scary! The only scary thing on her was the bruise on her forehead from falling at the park the day prior.)

 We went over to Charlestown - they have a big parade at the Monument and the whole town (and invaders like us) turns out. The weather was good this year, so there were probably close to 2,000 people parading and trick or treating. Here's Minnie in action:

 And of course, Theo celebrated his first Halloween. Sophia was desperate to have him dress up as Mickey, but sadly (for her) I had already acquired the giraffe costume, so a giraffe he was. He seemed pretty pleased with the warmth factor. :) And once Sophia got a hold of some candy, she had forgotten all about it.

The haul of candy was good and was divided out after we got home (and Sophia was asleep). Pile for her, small pile of the 2 or 3 things Dave could actually eat and a pile to go to work (i.e. the rest). After all, her birthday was coming up, so there would be plenty of treats for all!