.: Sophia: January Recap

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Sophia: January Recap

Sophia keeps changing, and I like doing the monthly updates to keep track and everything she's learning. But I also don't like counting in months so high (26 month old just sounds too math-y). So I figured I'll keep doing the monthly this way instead.
So on to the favorites!

So here are some of my favorite things about Sophia this last month:

1) She's an ANIMAL!!! - Sophia has seen 'Finding Nemo' a few times, nothing crazy. The one thing she picked up from it? Speaking like a whale. She does it all. the. time. Seriously, you usually can hear her making whale noises in her bed in the morning before she gets up. If you ask her what she is doing, she'll tell you, "I speaking like whale". Now when she's not "speaking whale" she usually prefers to growl like a lion.

2) "I so funny!"- her catch phrase. We must say it a lot to her, and quite honestly, she is so funny. But after she does anything and everything she says, "I so funny!" and just giggles to herself. This can be a good thing when whatever she has done (say grab scissors and run with them to jump on the couch) is in actuality not funny, because you can't stay mad at a giggly little girl.

3) Jumping- she LOVES to jump. Jump on anything possibly bouncy. Couch, bed, pillows, rugs- you name it. We went to a gymnastics play time the other day (with trampolines and foam pits) and she would have stayed there the rest of her life if she could. She's fallen off things, and bonked her head, several times, but she will not be dismayed.

4) Musical prodigy? Okay, so I know every parent thinks their child is somehow gifted, and unique, blah, blah, blah. And I've always tried to not buy into thinking of Sophia in those terms, but just appreciate her for who she is. That being said, this kid has a musical brain of sorts. No kidding. I couldn't even begin to list all the songs she sings by heart, to the right tune- name any kids song and $10 she's got it down. She sings the entire ABC song perfectly, and after hearing "Where is Thumbkin" one time, she sang it and all of the words perfectly ever since. Seriously, it is kind of astounding. She also recognizes musical instruments by their sound. I turned on some Classical music, and a violin started to play, and she said "It's a violin!". I looked all over to see if a picture of a violin had popped up, but no, she just recognized it by sound. She also recognizes piano and drums. I don't know what all this means for her in the future, but it's pretty astounding to me.

5) Identity Theft- Sophia loves to put identifiers on everything. "Sophie's stool" "Mommy's chair" "Daddy's shoe". And associates communal things with whoever is using it currently. When I use the shower it's "Mommy's bath" but is definitely "Sophie's bath" when it's her turn later on.

6) Who I Am- we drilled it and drilled it, and Sophia now answers appropriately the two most important question any child receives. "What's your name?" and "How old are you?". Now we're working on the two finger gesture to match her age.

7) Color confusion- Sophia knows her colors. She'll use them to say what she wants "I want my white shoes", etc. But if you ask her what color something is ("What color is this crayon") her answer will always by "Green!". I don't know why, but to her everything is "Green!" She loves green I guess? It's just funny, especially when someone asks her somethings color that actually is green- because then they think she's so smart. Usually I don't have the heart to tell them they've been duped.

8) Definitely 2- I don't know if there is an independence switch that turns on when a child turns two, but for Sophia it sure did. She wants to do everything herself, and tells us many times "No" and "Stop it". Now we really want to foster her being independent obviously, but sometimes a two year old is not the...oh, how do you say...most "logical" of people. And so when she has to do something, she'll throw a tantrum- such as when getting dressed in the morning. It's definitely a new phase of childhood and parenthood, which we're learning from every day. It is fun to see how self-directed she has become. She loves to pretend and direct her own toys to do things, and I guess those wonderful things come at the cost of her finding her own personality. I am okay with that.

BTW- anyone who hasn't read "Children: The Challenge" and has a child- DO IT! Ugh, that book has already been worth its weight in gold!