Aw, Man . . .

I totally dropped the ball. I had a lot on my mind yesterday and blogging totally slipped my mind. I'll post twice today to make up for it. Fair?

Some of you have been asking about Sophie. She still has a couple of blisters on her feet, but otherwise, she's back to her "normal" self. . .

Clap

Ivy started clapping last week. She does it on command now, and we don't even clap ourselves to show her. I love it when they reach these stages because it's like, "Wow, she understands!", but we don't have to spell anything or make up different names for stuff yet. "Cold white stuff" (ice cream) and "P-O-P-C-O-R-N" are the most popular with Sophie. Not that we don't give them to her, I just don't want her hearing me ask Steve if he wants ice cream or feels like popping popcorn in case he says no. Once she hears it, it's all over.

OK, here's my little clapping pixie . . .

She also says, "Babababa" sometimes if we say it to her. That's what I was doing, too.

Snowmen Need Accessories, Too

Play dough time (and coloring, too) sometimes becomes "tell mom what I want and she'll make it".

Orange Snowman . . . check.
Pink eyes . . . check.
Pink necklace . . . check.
Pink heart on the necklace . . . check.

I wonder if this snowman has a date?

Nope, just going to church with the other snowmen.

(P.S. There was a church-shaped cookie cutter along with an egg, a chick, and a rabbit in the Easter set I got a while back. It's good to know that commercialism hasn't completely taken over. . . yet.)

Alert

I went to the bank recently, and for the first time didn't have Sophie strapped in a stroller. (Brave, I know.) As I stood in line, she climbed on the soft chairs and played quietly -- until the wait became more than she had patience for (longer than 4 minutes). Suddenly she took off running with a little shriek to the other side of the bank. Luckily there weren't too many people in there and they all smiled sympathetically as I took off after her, leaving Ivy's carrier to hold my place in line. I wasn't too surprised. She does this everywhere we go.

An older woman (like 90s old), who had been watching the whole thing asked me how old Sophie was. I told her she was two. Then she said,

"She's alert, isn't she?"

Alert? That's a huge understatement, but sure. . . she's alert.

Feeling Better (Sorta)

Our night started off like this:

Sophie woke up crying. Steve goes to put her back to sleep.

Ivy gets woken up and screams until I latch her on to sleep.

Both go back to sleep.

Repeat every 30 minutes or so for 4 hours. And that was before Steve and I went to bed. Ivy isn't even in the same room as Sophie, but she's a light sleeper. We're still working on "going to sleep without nursing" and I think we've made some progress. I have to let her fuss, but just for a few minutes now. It's getting better, I think.

A much needed nap after an hour of almost non-stop crying about everything.

Sophie felt better today, and moved on to mashed potatoes and oatmeal. (After she ate about 8 bowls of yogurt and applesauce mixed together -- a favorite concoction of hers.) She wasn't as emotional as she was last night, but we've still got some healing to do.

This little stage of her "two's" that she's in has made this HF&M thing especially difficult. She's gotten more emotional lately in general and if she senses we want her to do something, she does the opposite. She's also started whining/crying a lot more for stupid reasons (like asking for more fruit) or no reason at all. I swear I say, "Don't fuss at me! Just ask!" about 239,998,129 times a day. Couple that with the pain she's in and not feeling well in general. . . let's just say I'm glad she's extremely cute.

The infamous little bumps.