Steps in the Right Direction

Sophia has been making great gains these past couple of weeks. She's now walking full time. It seemed like one day she just decided she was ready to walk and hasn't stopped since. I expect that soon she will be running in an attempt to keep up with her sister. She's also been signing a lot more lately. She does the signs for milk, eat, more, all done, sleep, and she's working on the sign for cheese. The only word she's saying is "mama". Yale is dying for her to say "daddy". Another neat trick that she does is when you hand her a tube or bottle that looks like it could be lotion (for example: a Balmex tube), she pretends to squeeze some into her hand, rub her hands together, and then rub her hands all over her legs. Of course, I find it quite precious. We're working on teaching Sophia to be more gentle, especially with her sister. Her typical greeting for Olivia is to bap her on the head or or to yank on her hair. Olivia tries to be patient, but gets pretty frustrated with her. Yale says that he's seen Sophia petting Olivia's head which is a step in the right direction.

Bark, Bark, and Pththth

The last couple of mornings Olivia has woken up and come out of her room saying, "I'm ready for my birthday!" It's pretty hard to explain to her that her birthday is a month away. She's so excited for the cake, candles, balloons, and I think, presents, too that she can hardly stand it. Hopefully the big day will meet her expectations. Olivia has been going through a stage where she likes to pretend she is a dog. She spends her free time crawling around the house barking, eating food from a bowl on the floor, and curling up on a blanket to take a nap. She tells us she has a blue sparkly tail that is very fluffy and wags. She loves to get right in her sister's face and make this loud screeching barking noise. Half the time this makes Sophia crack up, and the other half it makes her cry. When Yale mentioned that Olivia is going through a dog faze, Olivia said, "I have a dog face. I have a nose, and eyes, and fluffy ears." Sophia was sick most of last week with Roseola. She had a high fever and didn't sleep well. She's also cutting four top teeth. Fortunately she is feeling much better this week. While she was sick she took a break from learning to walk, but now she is back to taking lots of steps and getting a big kick out of it. It's looking like Sophia is going to be quite social. A former co-worker of mine, Mike Woolworth, came over last week. He's only seen Sophia once and that was when she was a new born. I was holding Sophia when I opened the door to let him in. She took one look at him, stuck out her tongue and said "Pththth" and then put out her arms and reached for him. He was amused by her warm, funny welcome.