Santa Claus Came to Town

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. This was the first year that I'd say that Sophia was really into Santa, so we enjoyed putting out cookies, milk and reindeer snacks. She was excited to get goodies in her stocking (it's amazing that she isn't hounding us to eat the chocolate) and get that "blue camera" that she requested. Our family and friends were SO generous and gave her so many wonderful gifts. Sophia is seriously spoiled, and there is no doubt about it. Luckily she still doesn't expect it and is a gracious gift receiver. She loves all of her toys and clothes and asks me to remind her all the time of who gave her a particular toy and tells me that we need to send a thank you because it is so nice. (We are still working on those.)

There are just too many pictures from the holiday to post here, so they are in our online photo album (just click on the flashing photos up in the corner of the page to go there). Franco was home and we visited with lots of family in a just a few days. Sophia came down with a cold, so she was a little uncomfortable, but she recovered pretty quickly and (miraculously) I was spared of this one.

Sophia's First Haircut

OK, it is not her actual "first haircut" but it is the first time I took her to the salon. We went to a kiddie place and it wasn't too bad. Next time I'll just make her an appointment with the lady that I see, though, because it didn't cost any less.


I had her take it a little bit shorter so the weight would stop pulling on Sophia's beautiful curls.

They give you a bag full of hair, a certificate and do it up cute with product and a flower. However, I did not appreciate the glitter gel that the lady put in without even asking.

More Christmas Crafts

Our second Christmas craft was making candy canes from beads and pipe cleaners. One of my girlfriends gave me the idea on her blog. Sophia did a really good job remembering the pattern. She made about six in all. Here is the one she gave to daddy:


And, of course, she hung it on the tree:

Fun stuff.

Surprise Lunch With Santa

We went to lunch to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday at a place called Shirasoni's Japanese Steakhouse. Don't ask me the exact name of the kind of Japanese cuisine it was, but it was the one where they put on a show on a big skillet in front of you. I liked it... it was interesting and the food wasn't bad. Sophia and Nadia ended up loving it because Santa showed up.

Who knew Santa had time to stop for lunch in Brentwood? We were planning to see Santa the following day at the mall for a nice picture for our Christmas card. However, since the big man came to us, we ended up getting a decent enough picture without going to the mall. Thank you Shirasoni Santa.

MyGym

Sophia goes to a parent participation class at MyGym once a week. She started just before Halloween. Sometimes we have a hard time getting out the door, but once she is there she has a great time.

She loves the ball pit. "Mama, bury me!"

Here she is at the end of circle time, right before they break for playtime:



Here she is at gymnastics time, swinging from one "island" to another on a rope:





Here she is at playtime again, swinging on an awesome swing:


I enjoy watching her so much and am so proud of how well behaved she is during class. She spends much of the afternoon after class asking me about the children in class who were not behaving. It is a mystery to her why they don't listen to their mommies.

Pardon the blurry pictures. I was using my phone to take pictures rather than disturb the class with flashes going off.

Santa Visit - Take One

Last year we could not find Santa when he visited our town and was forced to find him at the mall in Sacramento. This year I found a flyer saying that he would be visiting Toys R Us over the weekend, so we thought we'd drop by to say hi. Unfortunately, Santa was just making a quick visit so he did not bring the elves that set up a nice backdrop for pictures. All dressed up and standing in the middle of a store...

In order to brave standing next to a man that she hardly knows, Sophia brought along her friend Dumbo. Thank you to Dumbo for the moral support.

UCD Think Lab

Back before Sophia's birthday I got an email asking if she would participate in a study at UC Davis. In late-November when I finally responded to the email. Since they need to test 300 kids, they still could use her. We made an appointment to go on Friday in the AM.

The study is titled: Eye Movements in Children's Problem Solving and Reasoning. The investigator is named Zhe Chen. Eventually I hope that it will be published so I can see what they find out. I thought it was interesting, but failed to see a practical application. Maybe the information they find will be used by someone else doing a practical study... ?

Anyways, a couple students (I'm guessing undergrads by the look of them) met with us. Sherry sat Sophia in a chair with a booster and put her in front of a fancy computer screen that tracked her eye movements as she looked at pictures. While looking at the pictures Sophia was asked analogy questions. For example, "Here is a picture of a dog and a bone. They go together. What picture goes with the horse the same way that the dog and the bone go together?" In my opinion, Sherry spoke too quickly to be talking to a three-year-old, but she was probably nervous. Sophia got less than half of them right, but they were interested in where her eyes were going. My guess is that she wasn't thinking really hard about it because she liked to pick pictures that matched (a bird with another bird, instead a nest or worm).

Then Sophia went over and played a couple card games with a guy named Dominic. He asked her to say "happy" when she saw a sad face card and "sad" when she saw a happy face card. After hearing the directions a few times, I could tell she was thinking about it because she would pause and look thoughtful every time he put a card in front of her. Not sure the point of this one.

Dominic had another card game and then a puppet game. The puppet game was my greatest source of amusement and made the entire trip worth it for me. He had two puppets: the nice dragon and the mean bear. She was supposed to follow the directions of the dragon and not follow the directions of the bear. Telling her it was a mean bear almost set her into tears and sent her running for me, because bears freak her out a bit. Anyways, once they started playing she was fine. She happily did what the dragon said (touch your nose, pat your tummy, etc.) and then when the bear talked she would tuck her chin to her chest, look really serious and say "no" in a deep voice (kind of imitating the bear). It was pretty funny.

Anyways, it was an interesting way to spend our morning and Sophia scored some bubbles for all her trouble.

Christmas Crafts

Cut some shapes out of felt, using cookie cutters as my guide. Fabric glue, sequins and a three-year-old yields this:

Not sure what to do with them. They might go on gifts as decoration or I might string them together on a cord to hang like garland.

You can probably tell that I did not let Sophia squeeze the glue... she was plenty sticky putting sequins on my dots.

The Tree is UP!

I started putting the tree up the day before Thanksgiving and had to go out for more lights over the weekend. Sophia and I put the decorations on it on Sunday. She was so excited to help.


Franco just changed jobs, so he's been gone a lot lately in the transition. Usually he would put the tree up for us and hang the lights. I don't think I did too badly, but the lights are a little thinner on the top... hardly noticeable. Like how I wrapped the picture on the wall? Been getting lots of comments on that from people coming over. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Happy Birthday to My Baby!

Sophia officially turned 3 in this past week. Where does the time go??

On her actual birthday I took her to my eye appointment... exciting, I know. She actually went to the optometrist last week, which is when I made my appointment. She loved it and was excited to go again. During my turn she was really good and got a sticker, but she burst into tears when we got outside because she didn't get a turn. Not a good way to start her birthday. However, once she settled down, we went to her MyGym class and had lots of fun. Then we met Tara for lunch and then we stopped to do a little shopping at Trader Joes. She was thrilled to carry around her big container of organic lollipops and even more thrilled to have one when we got home. Every time we have bought them she eats the yellow ones first (and she prefers her yellow vitamins, too) so I asked her about which ones she would eat after the yellow were all gone. "Yellow, then pink, then red." What about the orange ones? Hmmm. "Yellow, then orange, then pink, then red." After nap, we had dinner and then she blew out candles in a cupcake. That made her so happy! I can't wait to see her do it again at her birthday party in another week.

Now that she is three, she is no longer allowed to jump on my bed. I've never really liked her doing this, but somehow it got started. About a week ago I was smart enough to prep her and say that turning 3 meant that she was too big to jump on our bed anymore. So far, so good.

Though I've been eyeing the chart, I finally "officially" measured her height and weight. She is just under 38 inches, which is nearly two inches taller than she was six months ago! She weighed 34.6 pounds at the end of the day. She is such a giant. I look forward to seeing where she is on the charts at her well-child exam.

For about a week now she has been showing interest in rhyming words. She will correctly say, "Cat, hat. That rhymes!" but will also throw out there, "Fish, cat. That rhymes! Right mommy?" If I laugh and don't respond, because I'm avoiding giving the five minute lesson on rhyming words again, she'll now hound me. "Is that a yes or a no, Mama?" At least my three-year-old is interested in learning new things.

If you are lucky, you might get to see her "super-duper" which is whatever trick she is attempting. Within the past two weeks she learned to catch a ball. Her solo trick is throwing something into the air and then catching it. She's pretty good at it now and is very impressed with herself.

Another trick that she has learned is to stall before going to bed by sitting on the potty. Not sure how to put the kabosh on that one, aside from avoiding rewarding the behavior with my attention. If anyone has tips, I'm all ears. :)

Anyways, there are a bunch of pictures from last week being held captive in my digital camera, so I'll try and get those up on the Picasa site soon.

Happy Birthday to my little baby! She is becoming such a big girl, I can't even believe it.

Detailed Update

Sophia is getting to turn three at the end of this month, so I thought it might be appropriate to document some of her newer developments. There have been quite a few, especially since I haven't written anything in such a long time.

First off, Sophia is pretty much potty-trained. We started sitting her on the potty at bathtime a long time ago, but started the more "formal" training at the beginning of summer. At the beginning I remember that the potty was in the living room (because she couldn't stand to miss anything), she was sitting on it constantly and going about 20 times a day. She got a lot of M&M's. Then she started running around the house to play without her clothes and I would have to remind her at least hourly. About a week after she finally started running to it by herself, the potty was moved to the bathroom. Now she only gets reminders before leaving the house or on the way to bed. She night-trained herself. One night she was wearing a nighttime diaper and she woke up to tell me that she needed to go. The second night she did it again and I decided that Pull-Ups were far more convenient. After more than a month of dry nights, I put her in panties at bedtime. That was about 4 nights ago. Accidents occur occasionally in the daytime, but involve so little pee that her underwear are the only thing that need changing - she stops before it becomes a really big mess.

Bathtime hair-washing has finally improved! About two weeks ago she finally tried putting the washcloth over her eyes like I asked. No more crying. I cannot tell you how much better this makes bathtime for us!

Playtime is increasingly independent. After going to a birthday party at the beginning of the month, I was reminded of a great Laurie Berkner CD (Rocketship Run) that she received for Christmas last year and the CD player that Grammy got her. Now that it is set up in her playroom, she'll go in to listen to her music, dance, and play with her toys. Her favorite toys right now: Several stuffed dogs (Puppy, Poochie, Tuffy, Puppy's mommy, Poochie's brother) and balloons she got at parties this month. I think she likes the balloons because she is actually able to catch them out of the air.

Conversation is very steady. I once said that she asks the question "why?" like she is filling a quota... we have not hit the quota yet. She is also very interested in who purchased every item she has or sees. She'll ask "Who got this duck for me?" and "Who got our TV?" and I answer, because I really do remember most of the time. A few nights ago she asked "Who got you, Mommy?" and (being funny) I said it was Daddy. Then it was "Who got Daddy?" and we said it was Mommy. Running with this fun, we said that Mommy and Daddy got her, so she asked "Where is the little girl store?" to which I had no answer (too much laughing). Having not forgotten our conversation, she randomly asked me today, "Mommy, where is the store where Daddy got you?" - too funny. I started to explain there is no store and we just went on dates but cut the conversation short when she asked for a explanation of dating.

In relation to her asking where she got every item she has ever received, she also wants every thing she sees. "I wish I had that" is something I hear all day long. A toy on TV... a dog walking by... one day she even randomly said it about a house she saw. Since her birthday and Christmas are coming up, I tell her that we'll have to wait and see what she gets. However, today I took her to Toys R Us and let her pick out one small item to take home because they sent her a $3 gift certificate for being in their birthday club. She carried Wonder Red (from Super Why!) around the whole store while window shopping and only abandoned her when I showed her a tiny puppy that she decided was a relative of the puppy she brought with her from home. Then she said she wanted to go. When I showed her different furniture and dolls for her dollhouse, she told me "Mommy, I have enough of those toys." So practical.

Sophia seems to have a lot of inner conflicts that she tries to play out with me. I wish I knew what this was about because it would help me feel less frustrated when it happens. She tells me something like "I want to play Playdough" and when I agree she'll start whining that she doesn't want to play with it and we just keep going back and forth until she starts crying or ends up in time-out. Other parents at the park tell me that they have the same thing happening, so I know it is a phase, but it doesn't make it less baffling. That has been going on for at least a couple months. I hope it stops soon. It will probably come back when she is a teenager.

In preparation for her birthday, I made her "3" shirt earlier in the month. Sequins. I've just been waiting for a nice overcast day to go take some pictures. Today probably would have been OK, but I got sidetracked. Tomorrow we have playgroup in the morning, so maybe Wednesday. This weekend is going to be rainy, so it turns out that to be good that we're waiting until November to have her party... unless November is even rainier. I guess we'll see.

As for my recent developments, I'm learning to sew. My mother-in-law is a professional seamstress and is all jazzed to teach me the ropes. Turns out that the 99 cent pattern that I picked out for my Halloween costume is much too advanced for me, but she is showing me all kinds of cool tricks that I'll likely never be equipped to use. I'll tell you one thing, though, learning to sew really makes you appreciate your clothes. I've learned why ruffles are a pain, why dresses with a lining cost so much, and why she prefers to fix clothes over making them. I've only had two lessons, but I can now read a pattern (at a second-grade level) and cut it out (super slowly) and pin it together (with the pins going the wrong direction). Next lesson, using the actual sewing machine and not sewing my head to my sleeve. I promise to post a picture when it is all done and we'll see if you can determine who I'm supposed to be. :)

Wait!

Sophia: "Daddy, Daddy! Wait! My frog! My frog!" (running to grab her tiny, green plastic frog that jumps when you push down on his rear)

Daddy: (leaving to go to the grocery store) "You want me to take your frog?"

Sophia: "Yes." (runs the frog over to him, kisses it, then hands it to him) "Bye Frog."

Princess Sophia

Today I decided to take full advantage of the overcast weather and take some new pictures of Sophia. In a princess gown and "crown," she stood atop her castle slide and posed. It has been six months or more since I last got her to wear a headband, but telling her it was a crown was what finally permitted me to strap that thing around her head.

She had enough trouble walking in the dress to realize that sliding in it would be somewhat impossible. So, when she was done with the posing, she wanted to change into normal play clothes.

A few more pictures are in our Picasa photo album, if you are interested.

Lunch at the Park

Today I packed a little lunch for Sophia, threw her in the bike cart, and took her to the big park for lunch. Surprisingly, she wanted to eat before she played.

Here she is enjoying her peanut butter sandwich:


(She has been a peanut butter addict since I introduced it to her last month.)

And, of course, she got to play for a while before going home to nap.


We definitely had a nice time, despite it being so close to nap time. With the weather being in the 80's, it is likely we will do it again soon.

Mommy and Sophia Comparisons

Recently I had my mom dig out some of my old baby pictures so I could compare them to Sophia's pictures. Thanks to the magic of scanning, I'm sharing them all with you now. I also took the time to look through a whole mess of Sophia pictures to try and capture an expression on her face that looks similar to my pictures - it was hard because she always smiled so huge. I apparently did not always like the people at Sears.

Mommy at 9 months:

Sophia at 9 months:

Mommy at 14 months:

Sophia at 14 months:

Mommy at 2 1/2:

Sophia at 2 1/2:

Yep, I had curls... but the straight bangs show where my hair was heading. The 70's were awesome! It's too bad that the one good picture I had scanned of Franco as a baby was saved in the wrong format. You'd see that she definitely looked like him. :)

Dear Target,

I just wanted to write you a note and let you know that I hate the changes you've made. The isles are too narrow and I can't find anything because there is so much of everything. Next time you want to remodel, I suggest that you ask me first.

Sincerely,
Your less-loyal customer

P.S. My sister-in-law is unhappy with the changes, too.

That AZ Law

Rarely do I depart from telling stories about Sophia, but I've been "moved" enough to want to give my thoughts on a non-mommy subject. If you don't want my opinion then you'd best stop reading... ;)

SB 1070 has a lot of people very hot and bothered. People are referencing articles all over Facebook and throwing around words like "bigotry" and "fascism" if you are in support. I think it is good for people to discuss their ideas, and I wish people could get more interested in the laws of this country, but I think a lot of people are making a lot of assumptions about the feelings and motivations of others.

Most of the argument against SB1070 is based on people thinking that if Arizona police officers are allowed to ask people for their documentation to be in this country, then they are going to go around asking every person of Hispanic origin to show their papers. This assumes that officers (and lawmakers and citizens) are solely trying to get "them" out of "our" country. Maybe some very vocal people feel that way, but isn't that really just assuming the worst of everyone? That is prejudice, too, my friend.

There is a very similar federal law that requires aliens (legal immigrants) to carry their documentation with them at all times. If they do not provide their papers when asked by a federal authority, they can be charged with a misdemeanor, given a fine up to $1000, and taken to jail for up to thirty days. If the agents of the Department of Homeland Security are not assumed to be bigots for asking people for their documentation, why do people assume that the Arizona police are?

Could it be that there is a terrible problem with crime in Arizona that is related to people that have already broken lots of laws? If a person is here illegally, they have already decided to break laws. They have to get forged documentation to work (illegal), lie to their employers (illegal), and possibly drive around in a car that is not registered correctly and probably doesn't have insurance (illegal, illegal). Is it really a stretch that they might join gangs? They already disrespect our laws. Might they consider doing other illegal things? Is that ever OK?

The way I see it, Arizona decided that they wanted to be able to prosecute an illegal immigrant for all of the laws they break when they are caught doing a crime, rather than just the one crime they were initially caught doing. And what if they see a person that they know has been previously deported? Shouldn't they be able to walk right up to that person and ask for their documentation? How is that profiling?

I really don't see the difference between a police officer asking for a person's documentation and a federal agent asking. Do people really have that much more faith in the faith in the federal government than in a state government? Do you think they've had SO MUCH more training? I doubt it. If everyone is going to protest Arizona's law, then they also should be protesting the Department of Homeland Security for upholding the federal laws that say the same thing.

And power to you if you disagree with my logic. Please feel free to comment and enlighten me (without offensive language) because I'd love to understand if there is another angle that I missed (which I do not doubt).

If you'd like to read an interesting article about this law, check out this site.

The DIY Timeout

I rarely had to do timeouts when Sophia's bed was still in crib form, but I was still worried where she would go during timeouts after the change because I didn't know if she would stay put. Well, one day I had her sit on her bed until she was ready to "be nice" when she was being especially disagreeable. It turned out to be fine because she already is trained to stay in her bedroom at sleeping times until Franco or I go to retrieve her, so she waits the same way during a timeout. Sometimes she'll yell, "I ready to be nice now!" but she'll still wait on her bed to be released.

Now she has started putting herself on timeout.

When she is feeling disagreeable, like when she doesn't want to wait for something, she'll sometimes say "I go sit on my bed!" and go running down the hallway. After a minute or two she'll call down the hall, "I ready to be nice now!" or "I ready to listen!" and I'll yell back that she can get up. This started happening just this week, so I doubt it will last, but we thought it was so funny.

Mother's Day in Monterey

Last Thursday we headed down to Monterey to celebrate Mother's Day. Our first afternoon there we went to Dennis the Menace park. Sophia had a great time, but we didn't take a lot of pictures. The next morning we had a wonderful breakfast and then went to the aquarium. Here's Sophia communing with the sea turtles:

The turtles were surprisingly interested in the people that were looking at them. Maybe they thought we had food... or that we'd let them out. Later, after lunch and a nap, we headed to the beach for a while. It wasn't a long walk from our hotel, but it was SO windy. I had mistakenly packed for the weather we had last year (warm and wonderful) and didn't bring a lot of warm clothing. However I did bring jeans and a sweater for the evenings. This is how I realized that Sophia needs new jeans - hers are all high-waters. Oh well, I don't think anyone noticed except me.

I think it is kind of funny to be wearing jeans and long sleeves at the beach, but at least we weren't freezing. It was funnier to see some teenage girls wearing swimsuits and running into the cold waves. Sophia didn't care what she was wearing. She enjoyed looking for rocks, shoveling sand into her bucket, and knocking down Daddy's sand castles.

Overall I had a very nice Mother's Day trip. If it was warmer, I would have liked to stay for the whole week. Since it was sweatshirt and jeans weather, a couple days suited me just fine.

Letters and Numbers

Sophia learned to sing her alphabet about the same time she started talking, but later (a month back? two?) we discovered that she can sing it in Spanish up to "n" from hearing on her music table. I think the song is less clear after the "n" or she just likes to say "en - ney." She's on her own since her daddy and I can't keep the song going past that point in the right tune (if we even remember how to say all the letters!).

She also can identify most of her upper case letters and tell you what sound they make thanks to the Leapfrog Letter Factory video. Foam letters in the tub were also a fun way to practice.

Today I was surprised to discover that she can count to at least 8 or 9 in Spanish... I'm thinking it was Dora. We've had a Dora book from the library since last week that counts to seven, but she must have learned it on the show as well to be able to keep going. In English she can only count to about eleven or twelve with any consistency, but she tries to keep going. lol

Not bad for two and a half. It may be more common than I think, but I was surprised by her skills. It is so fun to watch. :)

Two Monkeys and a Dalmatian

Sophia occasionally collects stuffed animals and small toys that become "favorites." The first was "Baa" the sheep. Baa still sleeps in her bed but is no longer a constant companion. At the beginning of this month a small monkey began to go everywhere we went. Then Sophia dug a little seal out of somewhere in our house that was meant to be used as a stress-ball. After a week with Sophia, the already forming cracks were becoming bigger and bigger. Then a flipper got amputated one evening at bedtime, so (instead of her freaking out) I put a band aid on the little guy:


I'm happy to report that we "traded" the seal successfully for a second monkey in the toy bin, but we also acquired a puppy (whose nose she popped off) at Grandma's. So now she carries two monkeys and a puppy. When asked the names, the first monkey is called "Lou Chay" and monkey #2 and puppy are both named "Nicole." Those would be her middle and last names, in case you are wondering. :)

There are easily more than a dozen little "friends" in her bed now. And one book.

Picnic Day

Picnic Day is an open house of sorts for UC Davis, where I am an alum. Sophia and I went this year and it was an absolutely beautiful day. We met up with friends, watched a parade, enjoyed lunch out on the vast lawns, saw animals, did a lot of walking, and then hit a barbecue on the way home for good measure.

Here's Sophia and her friend, Laura, as they boogie down at lunch:



What a wonderful, but LONG, day. It would have helped us both to have had a nap. Sophia ended up passing out on the way home that evening and was transferred straight to bed. Clothes, sunscreen and tangled hair still in place.

Big Girl Bed

On April Fools Day we decided to go ahead and take the side off of Sophia's crib. She's not a climber, but we thought it was time since we want to potty train in a few months. Franco attached the toddler rail and I made the bed with her new comforter and sheet set. It looked really cute, but any change is a big one for her right now. She currently sleeps with 11 different items and is very upset if any are not in place.

The first thing she did, while playing on her new bed, was stand up on the pillow and fall head-first over the rail. She never fell out of the crib before! Gave us a good scare, but she was fine.

The first nap and the first bedtime both resulted in tears. I had to walk her back to her bed two or three times at nap, but she stayed put after that. The following two days went great. Tonight, however, we had tears again. At one point, she got out of bed but then decided to crawl back in and stand on her pillow (I was watching on the monitor). Thankfully she laid down before she could fall down. Now she is asleep and I should be, too.

Minding Her Manners

Daddy thought it was funny a few weeks back to ask Sophia, "Did you step on a duck?" if she tooted. Fast forward to last Wednesday as Sophia sat in the high chair eating lunch...

Sophia: (**toot**) I stepped on a duck! (laughter)

Mommy looks at Daddy.

Daddy: Sophia, you should say "excuse me" if you toot.

Sophia: Excuse me! I stepped on a duck!

We both started laughing hysterically. I have since attempted to "reprogram" her manners and she has said only "excuse me" for the past couple days (and I praised her up and down for using her good manners!). We'll have to wait and see if she uses the same manners when Daddy gets back.

Easter Day

This morning when Sophia woke up she found a basket full of goodies from the Easter Bunny. She got a coloring book (pictured above), a set of alphabet stamps, a book, a baby bottle with "disappearing" juice, a big faux diamond ring, and a Pez dispenser. After some breakfast, I informed her that the Easter Bunny also hid some eggs in the living room (video on YouTube). Ten eggs had Fruity Cheerios and six eggs contained an M&M each. Even with only six M&M's, she managed to have chocolate all over her mouth. She had so much fun that we did it again after nap, only the eggs had fruit snacks inside. Even though it was just the two of us, Sophia wore her Spring dress all day.

Yesterday in the Car

As we drove along in a residential neighborhood yesterday, Sophia says to me:

"Mommy, that car is under a blanket. Blankets don't go on cars. That's silly."

Cracked me up. I guess she's never seen a car cover before. It is pretty silly. I was impressed that she even noticed.

No Posts for January?

Seriously, did I really not post anything for an entire month? Wow. You didn't miss much. We put away Christmas, went to story time at the library, and got visited by the stomach flu fairy - that one was not too fun. Then I had my birthday, had my hair done, and we found some new people to rent our old house. Must have been the weather harshin' our gig. We hardly took any pictures. Hopefully the rest of February will be more interesting.

Sophia is a chatter box now and has become very opinionated about what she does and does not want to do, eat, and watch (luckily she still lets me pick out her clothes!). My mom reminds me that some of the whiny behavior is probably due to the three molars that still have not come in -she did get one last month.

Today Sophia had a breakdown in See's Candy Shop when I wouldn't let her have a second piece of candy. The lady felt so bad that she made her up a bag of chocolate chips for after lunch (though she was still upset because she wanted it NOW). She was still sad when I took her next door to pick up some soup at Quizno's (side note: their broccoli cheddar is not as good as it is at TOGO's). The Quizno's cashier felt bad too, so she gave her a chocolate chip cookie. Since it was in a sealed bag, I let her carry it all the way home, which appeased her. She forgot all about the goodies after she had some lunch. Note to self: Don't go to the candy shop until after the toddler has had lunch. That was a rookie mistake.