the time has come...

I finally finished my Masters after 20 months of hard work, and now I have time to...update Sophie's blog! We are fully and firmly in the realm of potty. Sophie won't even let us in the bathroom, which Michael says is "exciting, yet terrifying". It's so bizarre to look at those first posts from before she was even born, and now she's kicking us out of the room with the loud exclamation: "I can do it myself!" We hear that a lot lately, and for the most part, Sophie can do almost everything herself. I'm just glad to have the energy and time to focus on her, play mermaid, and run around cleaning up accidents (I'm so glad we don't have carpet).

Barbies, ballerinas, dresses, oh my!

If there was any doubt that Sophie is a girl, this photo proves otherwise. Sophie's Barbies (named Ballerina, Ballerina Lucille, and Fairy Princess, respectively) have a place of honour in the big bed. I don't understand how kids can sleep with hard plastic toys, but apparently they are a necessity. Sophie is also starting to do a lot of play-acting, which involves Michael and I being princesses or riding invisible horses in our cowboy hats. To balance this out, Sophie still loves to get Michael to lie on the floor so she can jump on his belly and do amazing feats of acrobatics...maybe we should have had kids earlier; our backs are killing us!

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN

Although Sophie's had two Hallowe'en before, we feel this was Sophie's first Hallowe'en. She got excited about dressing up ahead of time, she chose her costume (made by Michelle) and after a couple houses, she really got into trick-or-treating. It's so nice to be in a house this year, and in a great neighbourhood where we can go out, see everyone's scary decor, and meet our neighbours. We made a quick pit-stop at Opa's for trick-or-treat, then finished the evening with hot chocolate at Starbucks. Sophie still talks about how she was Yoda and Daddy was Luke Skywalker.

Big Bed for a Big Girl!

Sophie has moved to a full-sized bed! We sweetened the transition with princess pillows, a princess blanket, princess poster, princess wall stickers...did we mention Sophie loves princesses? The first few nights involved a couple night time wake-ups, and one incident of her appearing in our room without making a sound (creepy!), but we're on a normal routine now. To balance out the princess obsession, Sophie also loves the movie Cars. She often spends part of the evening zooming back and forth as a car (in her princess dress, of course). Never a dull moment!

When did we get a two-year-old?!?

It has been several months since we had a chance to reflect on life with Sophie on this blog. She is delightfully, challengingly, hilariously two-years-old now. We have a very sparkley house due to the proliferation of princess dresses. Sophie still loves Star Wars, but she chooses to do Whyte Ave in full gown and rubber boots! Despite biting a kid at daycare (hopefully an isolated incident), Sophie is adapting well to my university schedule and life. Michael is also being super supportive, and it's nice for both of us to see the end in sight, as I'll be finished my Master's program in April 2009. There's way too much going on every day with Sophie to get it all posted, but we'll try to be more current with this blog.

Changes, changes!

We've been through a roller-coaster of a winter. Sophie gained a new cousin on November 23, 2007. Kai Thomas was born 12 days late, weighing 9 lb 10 oz, and extremely cute. My sister Chris and her husband Simon have a blog for Kai, and when I figure out how to do it, I'll put a link on the side of Sophie's blog. At first Sophie wasn't too impressed with this disruption of her "Auntie Chris" time, but now she's quite keen on her "baby Kai" and she's even shushed us for talking too loud near the baby. On the other spectrum of life, we all lost my brother Evan unexpectedly on November 28. We'll make sure Sophie learns about her uncle, and how excited he was about her, even before she was born. Christmas was nice. We pulled Sophie around Hawrelak Park in her old-fashioned wooden baby sled, and she loved it! She was intrigued by all the toys coming out of her stocking. I'm back in school this month. It's a heavy load, but we spend most of our home time watching Sophie make-believe, dance with her shadow, "conduct" to Baby Beluga, and goof around. There's no shortage of laughter around here.

Little Dragon

We're behind with the blog, but it's not for lack of adventures or excitement. There's never a dull moment with a toddler...messy moments, noisy moments, crazy moments, but certainly not dull. We had a fun Hallowe'en. Sophie and Mommy went trick-or-treating as St. George and her dragon. Sophie didn't seem too interested in the treats (more for us!), but she loved shouting hi and bye at the doors and sitting on the sidewalks to look at the jack o'lanterns. We're getting a lot of use out of the dragon costume, because she wears it around the apartment, and dragons are her new favourite thing. She and Daddy make dragon noises when they read her dragon books (yes, we have dragon books). I'm still trying to find a balance between family and grad school, but sometimes it's worth it to put the books down and play on the floor. Milestones: 16 teeth and counting (we never get a break from teething); a dozen words, with "all done", "bye", "cracker", "up-up" and "open" topping the list; climbing up and down on the furniture; opening doors (hence the maniacal door-knob covers); colouring with crayons; eating with a fork; trying to put on her pants; succeeding in taking off her diaper...I said it's never a dull moment!

One Groovy Chick

We are having a blast with this busy, funny little girl! Sophie's starting to use more words, although she still lets us know what she wants by pointing and shrieking. She has her routine around the apartment, which involves sitting on her musical chair, bouncing on her step-stool,

opening drawers, carrying the salad spinner through the living room, spinning in a circle in the middle of the living room, singing and dancing, colouring with her crayons (thank goodness they're washable) and dressing up with her blankets, hats and sunglasses...all before supper. Can't wait to see what comes next.

Look Who's Talking...just not to us!

"Mine" "No" "Granddad" "Hi, There" These are some of Sophie's first words, but we have to take every one's word on it, because she's still speaking a mixture of Ewok and Mandarin at home (well, at least that's what it sounds like). Sophie hasn't stopped moving since she started walking. Mostly she runs everywhere. She's also become a bit of an actress. We've had a few alligator tears and fake cries. She actually practices making faces in her mirror. We've had a big change on the home front. I found out at the last minute that I was accepted to grad school at U of A. This week I started my Masters in Library and Information Studies. It's a big adjustment, but we're excited. Now if I can just get to classes on time after trying to get a toddler dressed in the mornings....

Welcome to Toddlerhood!

The day after Sophie's birthday, she started walking and hasn't stopped since! I think she's quite pleased with herself. It's amazing that we've gone from this little baby to a little girl who climbs the stairs, runs in the living room and gets out of her crib (my bad...I left the side down). Can't wait 'til she starts talking!

Happy Birthday, One-Year-Old!!

Wow! Here we are at Sophie's first birthday! Unbelievable! She had 2 parties and handled them amazingly well. Yesterday, we had her cousins and friends, along with their parents for the big event. Sophie sat on Michael's lap and read every card and unwrapped every present, even kissing and hugging some of them. The birthday cake was hilarious. She was intrigued by the icing on her ice-cream cake, and decided to wipe away the words. Then she got her own piece of cake and obliged all of us with smushing the cake on her face. Today we had a slightly more subdue party with Sophie's Opa, but she still got her hands on some cake...no afternoon nap around here today. Good times were had by all and we thank everyone for the lovely thoughts and gifts!

Almost One!

Wow! It's hard to believe almost a year has gone by since Sophie was born! We've had a few changes: Michelle's back at work part-time, Sophie has started at a day home, and there are some new babies in our life. Sebastian Paul was born to our friends Darren and Addie on June 30th, and Emily Xisra was born to our friends Ali and Stu on July 6th. Now Sophie will have someone to boss around. Sophie's adjusting to her day home. By her last day, she was only "complain-crying", not the horrified shriek of the first day. Then she spent the second week with Michael, who played Mr. Mom to great success. Around the house, she's standing well and has taken a few steps (although I think she didn't realize she was doing it). She's even danced alittle. We're looking forward to the big party next week.

We're in trouble!

Our little Sophie-Loup is busy, busy, busy. She's completely mastered crawling and moved on to pulling herself up to standing. She also demands to be "walked" around the apartment while holding our hands. She needs to learn to walk on her own soon, or grow 2 inches because our backs are killing us! It's actually amazing watching her exploring more of her world, now that she can reach it. We never catch up with the baby-proofing, though. Sophie can turn on my record player, lick the stereo (oh, it's so shiny!) and open video tape boxes. All this makes us busy, busy, busy, too.

Quite the Traveller

Montreal was a lovely holiday. Despite our concerns, Sophie was an amazing traveller. She was great on the plane: no problems with take-offs/landings, loved the little TV in the back of the seat and waved at all the other passengers (eliciting smiles and laughs all around). She got to meet a lot of her relatives (we'll have to make a return visit to meet the rest), including her great-grandmother Lucille. Michael and I got to lounge in bed every morning while my mom fed Sophie her breakfast. The weather was great and we let Sophie go barefoot, despite the fact that all the Montreal babies were bundled up (wimps!) Sophie also chose this holiday as the time to start crawling like crazy and walk around holding hands (she has quite a goose-step when she walks). So now we're home and Sophie has 8 teeth, sings to herself, stands up holding onto furniture, makes jokes with her reflection, and insists on walking, walking, walking throughout the apartment (I wish we were shorter!)

Busy Baby

Nine month old Sophie has been keeping us on our toes this month! She has started to crawl, wave bye-bye and sing to her toys/books. She started with the "combat crawl" and now actively seeks us out around the apartment. Sophie now has six teeth...yet again we missed one coming in as we were so preoccupied with her other teeth!

Please check out a new link to videos of Sophie that we have added to this blog. The photo and video links have been moved up the page so that they are visible underneath our profile. Check for them on the left side of the page.

More Teeth and Some Tears

Sophie is now sporting 5 choppers, and as those who have put their fingers in her mouth can attest, they are sharp!!! Our little miss is also getting awfully close to crawling. She sort of launches herself forward to reach toys and the remote controls, but hasn't figured out how to coordinate her arms and legs yet. I continue to experiment in the kitchen with the home-made baby food. Sophie has working her way up to baby chili and chicken & avocado. She really liked the roast beef and potatoes I made for us. It's nice that we can now share our food with her, On a sad note, we said good-bye to our guinea pigs this month. TeaCup found a new home, and I like to think Penny is running around in a predator-free field in heaven, where she can eat all the grass she likes. When Sophie's older, we'll probably get guinea pigs again, because they were so much fun! For now, we're getting ready for our trip to Montreal next month, and we're excited about Sophie's first plane ride.

Things are going Swimmingly!

Things are going well at the PC household. Sophie is very close to crawling, which means we have to do more baby-proofing. Even though we try to distract her with her own toys, Sophie knows where the remote controls are, and how to use them (she changed the settings on the TV!). We've gone for a couple successful swims. Sophie complained when I put her face in the water, but then put her own face in a couple times after that. So now we're looking forward to our trip to Montreal in 1 1/2 months.

Gotcha!

For a baby who doesn't crawl yet, Sophie sure makes her way around the apartment. After she grabbed this video tape, she actually started to roll towards the VCR. Ah, perhaps we should cut back on her TV viewing! Sophie's 7 1/2 months now and we're having a lot of fun. We finally went swimming (photos to follow), and she had a blast. She even put up with splashes from her cousin Kate. She loves going out in the backpack. Every time I put her in there, Sophie lets out a whoop and tries to eat my hair. It's even more fun when Michael takes her because she's up so high. We did some "Baby Rhyme-time" at the library, but it's still hard to get going in the morning. I've figured out that early babyhood is a cycle: feed baby, change baby, put baby to sleep. Then you move to more of a routine, where you have morning and afternoon naps and mealtimes, but it all depends on when you get up. Then you move to a schedule. We're still on a "routine". I think I've got things all organized and then Sophie will wake up every 3 hours one night for no reason. Thank goodness there are 8 hour nights, or I might turn into a mommy-zombie.

Babababababbababa!

Our girl has become very chatty! It seems like 2 weeks ago, someone flipped a switch and Sophie has started to babble and react to people like never before. Her favourite activities are rolling, grabbing different fabrics, find the tag on her toys and bibs, and experimenting with different faces. I think we're in trouble with the rolling because she is fast! I stepped out of the room for 20 seconds, and in that time Sophie rolled 5 feet under the dining room table. It's unnerving to see what looks like an empty room when there's suppose to be a baby in the middle of it! Good thing she's so noisy because it makes it easy to find her.

Is that funny?

We're having a lot of fun with Sophie. She laughs at everything, and is even making her own jokes. She sneezed and cracked right up! She loves when we whistle, and funny voices are still a favourite. Her favourite game is "glasses", where she gives you this innocent look, and quick as a flash, steals the glasses off your face. I think I'm going to get some contact lenses!