Learning and doing more every day

It's been about a month since I've blogged and we've had a lot going on!

I'm back to work full time, which is an adjustment for all of us, but one that we seem to be navigating successfully. I am still working from home 2 days a week, which allows me to use that time I would be commuting to spend with Sophia.

We've also been traveling a lot, between our new place in Newport (more on that later) and a wedding in Buffalo on Memorial Day Weekend.

Sophia got to have a vacation at Nana and Pop Pop's (two new words she's acquired in an ever-growing vocabulary!) for the weekend, receiving more attention and spoiling than one could even imagine!

Playing with Nana in the sand:

Hanging with Grandpa:

Fun at the beach:
Unfortunately, all this working and such has really minimized the amount of pictures I take of Sophia these days, but here's a fun one from the park today:

Peak a Boo

As I mentioned earlier, her vocabulary is growing so much every week. New words and phrases include: "No No Dada" "Yes Dada" "Bus" and my personal favorite "Uh-Oh" (which, happily, is not always used when something is an Uh-Oh!) .

We missed out on the touch-a-truck this past weekend, but the other day we spent about 30 minutes outside of Porter Square watching all the "Buses" or "Toot-Toots" (as she often refers to them as) drive by. She climbed up and down the black and white stairs constantly, but would stop every 3 or 4 minutes when a "toot-toot" went by. It was classic.

Tomorrow is her 19 month birthday - Time really does fly!

Grandma & Grandpa's Beach

Last week, Sophia & I escaped to my parents house in CT for some cooler temps and lots of quality family time. It was exactly what we both needed.

When we arrived on Wednesday afternoon, we started to settle in. Recently, Sophia has become a little more clingy later in the afternoon when she is around new people. (We had an unfortunate meltdown with Dave's mom earlier in the week, but Harriet was a trooper and toughed it out.) We had a similar meltdown when Sophia first went to my dad late in the afternoon. She wouldn't take the bottle from him and, in general, just pitched a fit.

Luckily, this subsided by the next day. I think the more contact she has, the better she'll get.


It is so tough to watch because you know it's just a phase, but our hope is that she is comfortable as possible with other people. It's strange that it is just later in the afternoon. At any other point during the day, she'll happily go to anyone as long as they are smiling and paying attention to her!

Grandma & Grandpa had a great time spoiling her. She went on the swings at Foote Park (where I used have my Field Day growing up at St. Mary's School)


We went to visit my Aunt Joan and Grandma, who just ate Sophia up! (My grams is 88 and in fabulous shape - her mind, eyes and ears are all there. I hope when I get to her age I'm looking as good!)


She got to play with her new friend Ryan (one of my best friends from high school, Colleen, had her son about 6 weeks after I had Sophia).


We got a visit from Mary & Web - my basketball coaches from high school. They spoiled Sophia with lots of new, beautiful outfits! She gave them lots of smiles and playtime.


And finally, there was lots of outdoor playtime:

in the water with Grandma (which was fun, until the jellyfish came along. But no fear, my father speared it and tossed it into the sea grass)


Breakfast and playtime on the patio (what could be better?)


On a developmental note, she started making the first motions towards crawling - her butt got up in the air a little and she is rocking the baby pushups. We totally want her to go, but at the same point, love knowing she'll stay put when we put her down somewhere! :)



And then, it was time to go home. I remarked how bored she'll be this week with just plain old mom to entertain her!
Until our next visit...

Party time with Grandma & Grandpa Carletti

This weekend, my parents came up to watch Sophia. Dave & I had a wedding to go to, and while we could have brought Sophia, it was the perfect opportunity for us to have some time together and for my parents to bond with Sophia. They hadn't seen her live (we try to Skype as often as we can) in almost 6 weeks and were excited to come up.

We had left her before when she was little with our neighbors for a few hours, but not yet during the day when she's been on a napping/sleeping schedule. So this was something new for all of us!

Being the type-A personality I am, I typed up a document (it was less than 2 pages) with Sophia's daily routine, as well as her pediatrician info, etc. It wasn't so much for more parents, but rather to get it down on paper. Boy, was I the focus of a good roast all day from my mom and dad - well deserved, of course! It is so true that we often forget that our parents did manage to successfully raise us and keep us alive, even without all these newfangled gadgets that we swear by (Hello - baby monitor? We had a dog who would bark if I started to cry or woke up from a nap which would bring my parents up to the top floor of the house from the basement!)

It was a great day and now that we're over the hump, I look forward to doing it much more often.

Here are some pictures of the day (Mom was kidding that Sophia threw a party for her friends Eleanor, Frances, Andrew and Charlie, but they managed to hide all the bottles before we got home!) :)

I think the best part of the day was my mom getting to feed Sophia her sweet potatoes. She managed to get her to eat all of it without nary a mess (clearly a trait I didn't inherit!!)
Go mom -


Dad getting some quality granddaughter time:




Grandpa giving Sophia her bottle: