Our Advanced, Crashing Toddler

Sophia’s 18-month checkup went great. Except for the freak-out insane crying, that is. Otherwise, great. She’s perfectly healthy, and Dr. Sullo says she’s really advanced. Most kids her age have about 10-20 deliberate words. She’s got … I have no idea anymore. We lost count a while ago. Here are some basic categories; the word lists in each are quite incomplete:

• Body – she knows all the parts of the face, arms, legs, tummy, hair, belly button, hands, feet, as well as the clothes that go on them all – hat, gloves, jacket (and coat), shirt (she drops the “r,” so we don’t encourage this word too much…), pants, socks, shoes, diaper
• Around the house – couch, table, chair, seat, toys (and she can name most of her toys by their specific names), light, bed, “Night Moon,” book, painting, bath
• Food - food, eat, beans, dip, chicken, fish, coffee, juice, milk, snack, cookie, hungry, water, fork, spoon, chippy, bread
• People – daddy, mommy, grandma, papa, nana, brad, eric, carter, natalie, joel, courtney, jordan (and she can look at a photograph and name them all accurately)
• Phrases - “get up please,” “get down,” “sit down”, “stand up,” “there you go, baby (or insert person – daddy, mommy, etc.),” “thank you,” “bye-bye, [insert person],” “good song,” “Up I go!”, “good job,” “I throwed it,” “want it”
• Animals (and their noises) – dog (woo-woo!), elephant (with elephant noise), kitty (mew), horse (high-pitched neighing, then ppllllgh with the lips), rooster (cockadoodledoo), duck (quack), cow (mooo), lion (raaaarrrr!), whale, penguin, goose, turkey, bird (tweet-tweet), monkey, giraffe
• Miscellaneous – santa, snowman, einsteins, blastoff, pat-pat-pat (from Little Einsteins), dance, song, sing, hug, kiss, phone, car, beep-beep

And these aren’t just words we’ve made her repeat; they’re the ones she uses all the time, on a daily basis. Now, she’s struggling just a bit with three syllable words, many of which she insists start with “b.” I’m not sure why the “b” sound makes these words easier for her. For example, she points directly at the computer and says, “Bahkeeber” over and over. Oh well. She’s 18 months; I guess we can give her a break on 3 syllable words for now.

But all this is in danger of going away if she keeps doing what she did a few weeks ago – fall directly out of her crib. BOOM! We put her down for a nap, and a half hour later, we heard the big crash (which sounded a lot like a head hitting the hardwood floor), and lots of crying. We rushed upstairs, and thankfully she was fine – back to playing and dancing after about 10 minutes of tearful recovery.

She’s been sleeping in the Pack and Play ever since. We’re kinda scared to let her back in her crib, because she’s a daring little tyke who doesn’t really learn from her injuries.

Santa and His Flying Cows

Almost every animal is a cow.  Except kitties and doggies, which are, indeed, kitties and doggies.  But reindeer?  Those are cows.  Mooooooo!

We have a reindeer statuette/candleholder on the bench seat halfway up the stairs, and every time we walk past it with Sophie, she yells, “Cow!  Moooooo!”  She can also recognize Santa – which means, according to Sophia, Santa and his flying cows will be showing up tonight to drop off her presents.

Happy Christmas, everyone.

Words, words, words

Update: Here’s a bunch more:

• Nice! (Referring to the Christmas tree)
• Oooh, lights! (also referring to the tree)
• Pants
• Foot
• Hat
• Cow (and “Mooo!”)
• Hush
• Kitty (and “mew!”)
• Whoah!
• Food
• Eat
• Num-num! (yum, yum)
• Diaper
• Mickey! (Mouse, that is)
• Down (which she’s put in the place of “up”)
• Up (which she uses less frequently, now that she knows “Down”)
• “All done!” (I’m done eating now)
• Again (can you sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for the 78th time, please?)
• Nack! (Snack)
• Sit
• Natalie (she’s got the whole name now)
• Santa

Sophia is learning tons of words, and it’s hilarious. Especially some of the word combinations. (What does, “Hi, Juice!” mean, exactly?) Here’s a quick list of some of her favorites:

• Baby! (or, “Hi, Baby!”)
• Momma
• Car-car (Carter)
• Nat (Baby Natalie)
• Hug
• Love
• Painting
• Book
• Ball
• Hot
• Juice
• Daddy
• No!
• Yes
• Amen
• Arm
• Shoes
• Sock (formerly, “Socko!”)
• Feet
• Hand
• Dance
• “Ga,” and “Pa”
• Nana
• Courtney
• Joey
• Joel
• Doggie
• Duck
• Bath

Happy Halloween!

I am Uhu Daba

Carter and Sophia both love keys. It’s one of the only “toys” they are generally unwilling to share with each other.

For a week or two, Carter kept pointing at my keys and saying, “Daddy keys.” I finally decided to correct him (realizing that my nephew doesn’t even know my name at this point…). “No, daddy has his keys at work. These are Uncle Travis keys.”

“Uhu Daba keys!”

Uncle Travis = Uhu Daba

That works for me. I am Uhu Daba.

Adventures in Babysitting

Great movie.

Just for the record, babysitting Sophia, Carter, and Natalie can be the most fun the world, or the worst days of your life. I’m babysitting all three every Thursday. The first five weeks went something like this:

Week One: Not bad, only half day because Elizabeth got out of work early
Week Two: Worst day of my life.
Week Three: Lots of fun, fairly easy.
Week Four: The other worst day of my life.
Week Five: A moderately bad day.

There are several elements that go into making the day either good or bad, but NAPS are the key:

Carter’s the easiest here. Chuck him in his bed at around 1ish, and he’ll be in there for at least a couple hours. Sophia and Natalie compete for being the most difficult.

Sophie’s taken a lot of really crappy naps at Brad and Elizabeth’s house. She likes it really, really dark. There are no dark rooms in that house. But she’s also just difficult to get down for a nap. She’s having a word explosion, walked at the end of the 9th month, drinks from a sippy cup, does cartwheels, rides a bike, can recite the periodic table of elements, mows the lawn, and can finish the New York Times crossword puzzle in under 10 minutes, but she refuses to hold her own bottle. The good news is, for most of this week, she’s been falling asleep on her own without having to be rocked, which is new.

At least, we think she’s asleep…tonight, after several hours, we found that she had just been really quiet…

Natalie, on the other hand, is really weird when it comes to naps. The first morning I was there, she woke up at 7:15, and then zonked out at 8am (yes, that’s only 45 minutes of being awake) for a freakin’ hour and a half! Two weeks ago, on the other hand, she wouldn’t go to sleep till after noon, and she gets really cranky when she doesn’t sleep (which, of course, she could easily remedy by, you know, going to sleep, but you can’t explain these things to infants. They don’t listen to reason.) So the randomness (and brevity) of Natalie’s naps make the day really unpredictable.

And then you get to the point in the afternoon where Natalie’s only happy if she’s being held at exactly 4 feet, 2.7865432 inches from the ground, facing northeast, with her legs at a 117 degree angle, and the slightest movement from any of these exact measurements will result in crying. And then, just as you get those measurements down perfectly, Sophia and Carter decide they want to climb up the chimney or something.

Fun times.

Soapy Funny

We’ve moved into the new house, and though things are a bit chaotic, Sophia’s doing well…

…except for being sick for the first time in her short little life. She’s got some kind of virus, causing fevers, runny nose, and lots of #2s in the diaper. On the plus side, she’s also getting a decent amount of sleep for the first time in her short little life.

Sophia now spends three days a week with cousins Carter and Natalie, Mom, Elizabeth, and myself taking turns watching them. It’s getting a little easier to watch all three at once (the first time I did it, I called it the hardest work of my life). Sophia and Carter play very well together. They even know each other’s names. Carter calls Sophie “Soapy,” or sometimes “So-he.” He also thinks she’s very funny, so I frequently hear, “Soapy funny!”

Carter, of course, is “Car-Car,” and Sophia picked that up about a week ago. Though sometimes it’s, “carcarcarcarcarcarcarcarcar” until she feels like stopping. She’s also learned “baby” and can point babies out now. Elizabeth called two days ago to inform us that Sophia learned the sign for “more.”

I think it’s a really good thing that all three are getting to grow up spending so much time together. It’s too bad cousin Joel doesn’t live just a little closer! We’ll need to arrange more times to hang with Joel so he doesn’t end up the weird cousin or something. (Or maybe the only normal one).

We’re getting the ducts cleaned here tomorrow, just to make sure Sophia doesn’t get sick because of bad air. Her nursery was the first thing we set up when we moved in, and it’s great. I’ll try to get some pictures of the new house up as soon as we’re semi-organized.

Sophia is being baptized this weekend (along with Carter and Natalie). I know that’s a bit of a shock for our Baptist friends and family, and if someday you have about 7 and a half hours to just sit and listen to me ramble, I’d be glad to explain the 2 year study that led me to the conclusion that infant baptism is biblical. Actually, I did blog through the issue during part of the study, so you could read my many reasons in the following posts:

The Baptism Journey
Pondering Paedobaptism: What Did the Apostles Learn from Jesus?
Paedobaptism: Skipping the “Cage Stage”

We’re celebrating the baptisms with friends and family afterwards. I’ll post pictures of the baptism and the after-event.

Changes

Pictures of Sophia’s birthday party last month are up on Flickr! Thanks to all who came and for the presents you got for Sophia. She loves ‘em! Brad and Elizabeth succeeded in getting revenge on us. For Carter’s first birthday, we got him a car that flashed lights and made lots of noises. For Sophia, they got a table that plays some of the most obnoxious songs I’ve ever heard (picture at Flickr). Thanks, guys.

Sophia’s going through quite a few changes now! She’s got quite a temper…But she’s also developing quickly! New words: “up,” “Daddy,” and “Mimi,” which is her way of trying to say “Mommy” are all fairly regular now. It also just so happens that every single animal is a “cat” and it’s name is “Ted.”

Her least favorite word is “no.” She doesn’t say it, but she throws a little fit on the floor when she hears it!

I’m part-time now, and Tricia is back to work. Sophia gets to spend three days a week with cousins Carter and Natalie! One day Grandma Prinzi watches all, one day Aunt Elizabeth, and the other day, me. The other two days a week, it’s just me and Sophie! Mommy misses her like crazy.

We’re also about to move, so she’ll be getting use to a new house. She keeps climbing up on the packed boxes when we’re not looking!

Walking!

I’m still having difficulty keeping up with regular posts here, but there is an update that needs to be shared:

Sophia’s walking! She’s been taking her own steps for about a month now, but she’s been a bit reticent to give up crawling as her regular form of transportation, as she’s gotten so incredibly fast at it. But over the weekend, she began regularly standing up all on her own without holding onto anything, and today, she’ll walk 4 or more steps towards you after doing that.

Very exciting stuff. She’s babbling like crazy as well. She’s a joy, for sure.

Sophia’s New Cousin: Natalie Elizabeth Prinzi

Sophia’s new cousin, Natalie Elizabeth Prinzi, was born to Brad and Elizabeth at 5:33am on April 27th. 8lbs, 9oz, 20.5 inches. She’s adorable. And Sophia now has a girl cousin. Follow the link to Carter’s and Natalie’s flickr site here (and it will always be available as a link at the top of this page).