Love Internationale

It’s already the 26th again. Sophie is thirteen months old and has been with us for four months.

She has changed so much in that time. Sophie was a “Buddha baby” — there were a couple in our travel group and she was definitely one. She is still mostly calm, mostly easy going. However, as she has grown more confident in us, in our love, she has definitely developed a spicy side too. This is good!!! It means she has abandoned her survival tactic of being adorable, smiling (false), and eager-to-please. She doesn’t need that tactic with us.

Here’s a little summary of where Sophie is right now:

• She is crawling all over the place. I have made good friends with my Swifter and use it three times a day. Otherwise Sophie is my Swifter.
• She is beginning to “cruise” and stand up holding on with just one hand. We are not encouraging her to walk, however. We’re letting her come to it in her own time.
• She can say “mama” and “papa,” but uses mama more often than papa. The other day I was trying to teach her to say “uh oh” and she kept going uh..uh. She’s trying! She babbles all time. Sometimes when she’s doing something…like rolling around while I’m trying to change her diaper and I’m preventing her…she’ll “scold” me in baby talk. It’s adorable.
• More and more of her personality shines through every day. She’s a mostly happy baby, but she prefers us to stranger (that’s good), so doesn’t really like the attention she gets in stores, ect. When she wants something, she wants it. When she doesn’t want to be in her high chair anymore in a restaurant, everyone knows about it. She can be quite demanding at times.
• The sleep issues (knock on wood) appear to be leveling out. Now I can get her back to sleep in a short amount of time. My best guess for the cause of her wake ups is regular old bad dreams.
• Feeding continues to be an issue, but we’re working on it. She wants baby food over table food, wants bland flavor and smooth texture. Brushing the toofers…well, hell, pretty much impossible. BUT she is mouthing toys more and more, so we have seen improvement on the sensory front.
• She’s using a sippy cup! Kinda. She chews on the tip and gets water out that way. Still, it’s progress.
• She LOVES water. Baths are tons of fun. Swimming pools are heaven.

Sophie on 7/26 — Our beautiful daughter at thirteen months.

Sophie on 6/26 — One year old!

Sophie on 5/26

Sophie on 4/26

Sophie on 3/26

Or at least within my grasp.

After Sophie has repeatedly rejected all my cooking attempts (frankly, I can’t blame her), and rejected table food over and over (and over), I finally got her to eat off my plate. It started slow, by giving her little tastes of my salad dressing. Then two nights ago she ate some of my grilled chicken. Don’t worry I cut up it into very small chunks. And this morning…she ate scrambled eggs. We’re making progress.

At least there is hope she won’t be ridiculed in elementary school for packing Earth’s Best baby food jars in her lunch box.

12 month checkup was today. There was much crying. Er, Sophie cried too.

I’ll admit it, I can’t stand the ped appointments. It breaks my heart to see Sophie so agitated and afraid.

She is still firmly in the 50th percentile for everything–height, weight and head circumference. Doc says I’m not feeding her too much (I asked). Apparently I’m feeding her just right. So that’s good. Doc also said to keep her on formula for a while as long as she accepts it, so we will.

I asked the ped about Sophie waking up every night around 10:30pm, after she’s been asleep about two and a half hours. I wondered if it might night terrors, but the ped doesn’t think so since Sophie is easily consoled and babies having night terrors aren’t. The doc thinks it’s just separation anxiety. That she wakes up and I’m not there, so she cries. The ped says it’s fine to go to her now, but after a while I’ll have to stop because she’ll be so spoiled we won’t know what to do with her. :-/ Guess Sophie’s going to be spoiled. I can’t just let her cry. I just can’t. Anyway, considering all Soph’s been through in her little life so far, I think she could stand a little spoiling.

We’re still working on attachment anyway. Attachment is solidified every time we meet her needs. I would say that waking up alone, maybe scared, and needing comfort is a need.

Sophie is attaching to us. I can see it with both James and I. She knows who mama and papa are. For example, we were at my grandmother’s house the other day. About five family members, all of whom Sophie knows, were in a circle and Soph was in the middle crawling around. Continually she went back and forth to James and me, didn’t go to anyone else.

Also, when I drop her at my father’s in the morning before the day job, she does a 15 minute crying thing after I leave. It’s only about 15 minutes though, and then she settles down. I’m told this is healthy and just about normal for most kids. If she didn’t cry at all, I’d be worried. If she cried all day, that would be terrible.

Anyway, back to the ped….

I totally made an idiot of myself over the vaccinations she was supposed to get. I asked a million questions and backpedaled twice. Finally, I decided she should get them. Mostly it was a question of now or later…when she was little older. Just a note: I don’t want to start a debate about vaccinations. For some reason it’s an uppity subject. I think there’s evidence on both sides of debate, but the pro vaccination side weighs heavier for me. They still make me nervous, though.

Now she’s all whiny and cranky. At the moment she’s standing by my chair and smacking my thigh with a wooden spoon…while whining. Oooops, she just smacked her own head. Gotta go.

I’m cranky from the ped and mama just set me down in all this grass. Oookaaaay.

Huh. What’s that? Is that the neighbor’s doggie?

Eh. Bored now. I’m outta here.

I love making little movies and such, but I can’t figure out why they turn out so blurry. Wah. Are they blurry on your end? Maybe it’s just my computer.In which Sophie is distressed by her first cupcake. Taken at her birthday party.

In which Sophie crawls and crawls and crawls and crawls…. (well, she does get distracted a couple times) I picked this music because Sophie totally rocks out to it.

I have a short one of Sophie standing too, but You Tube is being poopy.

Okay, so she’s not really ready for these yet. They’re still cute, though.

Sophie is pulling up to stand…on everything. On our pant legs, on the chairs. No sooner does she have her little chubby hands on something solid than she’s up. She can hold on with one hand, but she’s still far too shaky to stand not holding on to anything.

And, OMG, she never stops these days. *wipes forehead* She is everywhere. Harassing the cats is one of her favorite past times, so we’re keeping a close eye on her.

The sleeping issue is still an issue, but more and more she’s going to sleep easier once she wakes up. I go in, rock her a little and blam she’s out again. Once she’s out she’s a very deep sleeper. We had a hella thunderstorm last night and she didn’t wake up once.

Developmentally, Sophie has made great strides and continues to do so. Her only real issue is feeding.

Sophie is making slow progress with the feeding thing too, however. Slooooow. Today we finally retired the medicine dropper (that’s the only way I could get water into her) for a regular cup. She rejects the sippy cup nipple 9 out of 10 times, so we’re still working on that.

She shows no interest in feeding herself. Won’t hold the bottle (definitely not a sippy cup). She doesn’t mouth stuff like babies her age usually do, so she’s not bringing food to her mouth, ect.

And hard foods are an issue. While she can chew and swallow chunky foods with no problem, she has an automatic gag reflex when you put anything harder in her mouth — like meltable cherrios or cookie, for example.

But, overall, she eats really well. I can get her to take a lot of food at every meal so I don’t think her nutrition is being affected. Tomorrow is the first day the OT comes to work with us. Feeding is primarily the focus.

She’s ahead in speech, which is amazing considering she’s switched from a Mandarin dialect to English in the last three months.

We expect her to be walking soon. AIIIEEEEEEE!

Sophie with the spoon firmly between her teeth. She does this to me at least twenty times at each meal. LOL.