Mommin' It Up!

January 24, 2011January 22, 2011

Baby Mama

During my pregnancy with Jonah, I was very worried about how Sophie was going to react to the new baby. After all, she as already four when he was born and very used to being the baby herself. And she is a TOTAL mama’s girl and I was afraid she would be super-jealous and want to eat him alive for taking up my time and attention.

Whenever I expressed this fear either to friends or here on the blog, everyone said that Sophie would surprise me; you all said that she would looooove the baby and be a “Little Mommy”. Since I can barely get Sophie to glance sideways at her baby dolls, I was not really believing you all. At all.

But YOU were RIGHT.

She adores him. She wants to burp him, snuggle him, pick him up (no), change his diaper (um, NO), and shove his paci in his face all day long, even when he is soundly asleep without it, or happily awake without it. She tells him she loves him constantly and she is SO. Sweet.

But of course, she is a little TOO attentive, and I fear I am going to spend the next six months constantly saving Jonah from his big sister who loves him so much! Earlier this week I changed his diaper and then left him in the pack & play to wash my hands. I came back to find Sophie un-snapping his sleeper (4 snaps down!). “I’m gonna change him.” She informed me. I then informed her that he had just been changed and that, oh by the way, only grown-ups were allowed to change his diaper! (Although I HAVE let her “assist” with a gentle wipe after I’m already done.) Then, the next day as I was making dinner, Jonah was again in the pack & play when Joshua came running into the kitchen and said, “Mom, this is REALLY bad…” so I pushed him out of my way (he is incapable of saying ANYTHING quickly) and ran to the pack & play. Sophie was standing there with innocent eyes and Jonah was crying. Joshua followed me into the room and said “She kept trying to pick him up but she couldn’t. And she kept telling me it was my turn but I knew I wasn’t supposed to so I ran in to tell you.” (What a saint.) So I had to give her the lecture about how only grown-ups can pick the baby up. She cried and cried. She was really sad about it, because she was afraid she had hurt Jonah.

But despite the near-misses, Jonah seems to love her already, too. I caught one of his early smiles on Friday and he was looking right at Sophie as I took this picture:

Of course, two seconds later when she was trying to put his bootie on his HEAD instead of his foot, he was less enthusiastic:

And yet. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful sibling relationship! And I couldn’t be prouder of my girl for doting on her little brother!

And did you hear me? I said I was WRONG! You were RIGHT! I’m so humbled. 🙂

January 13, 2011January 12, 2011

Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard

My little shy, anti-social Sophie has really started to blossom in the last couple of months. She’s really starting to be more social in a lot of ways, and one of those ways is that she l-o-v-e-s the other kids in her class at preschool. But she especially big puffy hearts one kid in particular, and his name is Julio.

When Sophie started this particular preschool right after Thanksgiving, I was worried about her adjustment, but she got comfortable with the other kids right away. She mentioned Julio’s name within the first couple of days. At first I was like “Julio? Really?” – I thought maybe I was misunderstanding her. But I asked her teacher, and sure enough – there was a boy in her class named Julio. By the end of the week she had also mentioned a little girl named Ashley. By the end of the second week, I knew the name of every kid in her class (there are 12 including her). She was excited to tell me about all her new friends, but Julio’s name is one she mentions without fail. When I am dropping her off and she sees him walking down the sidewalk she gets so excited and yells, “Here comes Julio!” or “Look, Julio’s here!”

One day before Christmas when I went to drop Sophie off, I saw Julio’s mom dropping him off, and I tried to tell her how much Sophie luuurves Julio. But, I discovered there is a bit of a language barrier: her response to me was to smile and nod and say “It’s cold!” (Which it was.) Dangit, I am really regretting that French minor I had in college! Spanish would apparently have been much more effective!

A couple of days later when I went to pick Sophie up, the class was running a little late so they had me come in the room (usually they just throw the kids out the door at you). As I was getting Sophie’s coat on, Julio kept saying “Bye So-PHIE, bye So-PHIE!” very energetically. One of Sophie’s teachers smiled and said, “He doesn’t say much in English, so that means something right there.”

So apparently Sophie and Julio are members of the Mutual Admiration Society.

Sophie thanks Jesus for Julio every night at bedtime (usually either Ashley or another classmate, Dominic, also gets a shout-out to the big JC as well.) She can now write his name, which along with her teacher’s name and Ashley’s name, is her favorite thing to write.

And every day after school, when I ask her who she played with at school, she yells “WHO-LEE-OH!” before I can even finish the question.

I’m super-excited that Sophie has made such good friends at school, and I think it’s just a LITTLE bit cute that her BFF is a little boy who speaks even less English than she does.

Also super-excited that it ties in so perfectly with a Paul Simon song. I mean, really! It’s Sophie and Julio down by the schoolyard, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

November 29, 2010November 28, 2010

Ah, Narcissism. Thou art genetic.

Perhaps you may remember from reading this blog previously (because I KNOW you’ve committed every post to memory) that I am a *smidge* vain. Although I will say, my vanity takes a HUGE dive when I’m pregnant (I think I wore makeup like three times all summer. Really, foundation just seems pointless when you’re puking 24/7). But anyhoo. Normally I am rather vain. I likes my makeup and my pretty clothes and I like to look cute!

And apparently, I have passed this tendency toward vanity down to my daughter. Who, of course, is alarmingly adorable. But REALLY. Emily has made fun of me for looking at myself in any available mirror before, and recently this has become a little problem for me – when Sophie does it! Which she does at EVERY available opportunity. Today for instance, she watched her reflection in the oven as she danced in the kitchen, in the dining room window (turning around backwards in her chair) as she ate lunch, and in the bathtub FAUCET for Pete’s sake while taking a bath! She was really enjoying making eyes at her funny reflection in that faucet!

But all these were just minor, no big deal really. The big narcissism problem came last Wednesday at her speech therapy appointment. Sophie l-o-v-e-s speech and her therapist, and is usually good as gold for the entire 30 minutes. BUT. There is a two-way mirror in the room so parents can watch the kiddos without being seen. And this week, instead of being cooperative, Sophie made EVERY effort to STARE at herself in the mirror the whole time! She did everything her therapist asked her to do…while watching herself do it, and making a funny face if possible. Which made her focus and accuracy come down just a few levels on the scale. Arrgh! My blood pressure was rising on the other side of that mirror!

Sophie. This therapy costs GOOD MONEY. Don’t make me go in there and tar paper over that mirror!

I’ll be interested to see how she does this week! I think I am just going to go ahead and ask her therapist to turn Sophie’s chair around so her back is to the mirror.

Because after all, Sophie is the fairest. And she just finds her reflection irresistible!