Sophia is very vocal (i.e. talks a lot) and expressive. She is happy, smiley, even-tempered, observant, and quick to learn. Sophia said the word “cat” when she was nine months. She and I were playing quietly when our cat Bob walked by. Sophia squealed, “cat!”. I thought it was a fluke so I started asking, “where’s the cat?” and she would crawl over to the cat or turn her head and look at Bob or Neo, our other cat. And I would ask, “can you say cat?” and she would say “cat”. Some days, she also says “Bob” but she’s not as consistent with that one.
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| Up close and personal with Neo. |
She can do so many tricks now and at times I coax her to perform them for family and friends. I remember saying when I was pregnant that I wouldn’t be one of those parents who gets their kid to perform for people. Alas, I find myself doing exactly that as I coax her to do twinkle, twinkle little star (open and close her hands as I sing the song), wave hello or bye-bye, do hooray (raise both arms way up), or show us where the light is (point up at the light).
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| Hooray! |
One of our favourite games to play is hide-and-seek around the sofa. I run over to the opposite end of the sofa, crouch down to hide from her, and ask loudly a few times “where is mommy?”. The first time I did this, I heard her crawling toward the sofa and then stop. After a few seconds, I wondered why she wasn’t moving closer so I peered under the sofa to see what she was up to. Well, I found her laying flat on the floor, looking straight at me with a big smile on her face. When she saw me looking at her, she let out a big squeal, and when she heard me laughing, she started laughing too.
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| Playing hide-and-seek with mommy. |
She likes reading books. She especially likes the lift-a-flap type, perhaps because she gets to do something with the book. She also likes taking the books from the shelf and dropping them to the floor, one by one. Not so fun when the book lands on her foot, though.
On the potty business, she is still going pee and poo in the toilet most of the time. With the introduction of solid foods, it’s been a bit more challenging to predict whether she needs to go poo and I usually miss the ones right after the meal because I’m lazy to take her to the loo after every meal. The big development is she sits down on the trainer seat now. Not all the time but about half of the time, she agrees to use the seat.
Meal times just got more interesting now that Sophia has decided that she does not want me to feed her anymore. She wants to do it herself. She uses her hands to feed herself and waves the spoon around as a toy. She still hasn’t figured out how to use the sippy cup either. But she continues to pack away an impressive amount of food, given her little frame.
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| Self-feeding has started. |
As for mobility, she is starting to walk, albeit assisted. Yesterday, she used the activity walker for the first time and her little legs were totally able to keep up the pace as she pushed that walker around our living room. We have also started to let her crawl up the stairs. She goes a lot faster when one of the cats goes up the stairs, too, and she chases after it.
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| Sophia and the walker reaches the end of the line. Time to U-turn. |
I could go on and on but I’ll stop there. It is really fun to watch her grow and learn all these new skills. I never imagined it could be so and I am glad I have the opportunity to be with her everyday to witness it. It really is pure joy!
