Emotional Sophiecoaster

I know I have perhaps devoted too much time to my Sophie-girl’s terrible two’s, but the girl confounds me. And blogging about it is cathartic, so until you beg me to stop, or Emily forces me to, here is another tale in the Sophie chronicles.

Monday at both lunch and dinner Sophie refused to eat her fruit, and was rewarded both times with a post-meal time-out in her crib. At the end of said time-outs, I said, “Tell Mommy you’re sorry.” She just looked at me and grinned and spoke the Hindu language at which she is so fluent. “Sophie, tell me you’re sorry,” I demanded more firmly.

More I’m-so-cute-babble.

Infuriating!

You see, Sophie doesn’t talk all that much, but she can say a good 75ish words and phrases, one of which is “Sorry.” If she falls down, or bumps into something, she says, “Oops, sowee.” It’s very cute. But it’s not cute when she CAN say and she SHOULD say it and she WON’T say it.

She wouldn’t, and didn’t, and tired and frazzled at the end of the day, I didn’t know what to do. I felt like a total failure and Sophie’s lack of repentance hurt my feelings and reduced me to tears.

That was Monday. One of my friends who’s thinking about quitting her job to become a stay-at-homer asked me how I liked being at home. “Well, I love it most of the time, ” I said, “but sometimes, like today, Sophie makes me want to go get a job at McDONALD’s just to get away!” (She asked me to be brutally honest!)

Thankfully, she was a pretty sweet girl the rest of the week. Then yesterday, Sunday morning, I wasn’t feeling too well, so Bobby got up with the kids and let me sleep in. But when he got Sophie out of her bed, she wasn’t satisified. “See Mommy?” she asked. So Bobby brought her into my bedroom where she immediately adhered herself to my side. “Hi, Mommy, ohh Mommy,” she said sweetly as she snuggled into me. After a minute or two, Bobby tried to get her to go with him, but each time he tried, she just burrowed herself closer to me. I was loving it.

“It’s ok,” I said. “Just come back for her in awhile.”

So Sophie and I snuggled there on my bed for a good half an hour. She stroked my hair and patted my cheek and pressed her little face up against mine. Occasionally she’d decide we weren’t close enough and lay on top of me for a minute or two. It was so, so sweet. Just us, no entertainment, no snack, nothing but mommy and daughter and snuggles.

Once again she reduced me to tears. But in a good way this time.

Such a duplicitous little booger!

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Hairritating

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned Sophie’s hair-twirling? And how she makes the most impossible snarls in her hair? Let me offer some proof that I was not exaggerating. She did this a couple of weeks ago during naptime:

did this one during naptime

And these next ones are a couple angles of a puzzling creation she made with one hand while eating her lunch. Now, if that’s not talent, I don’t know what is!

Side view – look how far it sticks out!

the results of soph's hair twirling efforts

Close-up – She’s like the Dale Chihuly of hair knots, I swear.

she did this with one hand while eating lunch

A few bottles of detangler and Xanax later and we had it all straightened out…I seriously need to buy stock in both!

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Really, She Has Many Endearing Qualities

Last week my friend Cortney and her husband and two boys visited our house church (we all go to the same church but “house church” is what we call our smaller groups that meet in people’s homes throughout the week.) She’d never met my kids (and I’d only met one of hers), and Sophie made a great first impression by serenading Cortney & her hubs with an unintelligible but very in-tune version of “Love Your Neighbor” by the Veggie Tales.

With her eyes closed.

You see she has this “look-at-me-but-don’t-look-at-me-I’m-so-cute-but-I’m-so-shy” face that she pulls out to impress people once in awhile. It looks something like this:

eyes closed

So, anyways, after she was done serenading there was general conversation about how sweet she is, because, really, I promise, this girl is sweet sweet sweet. Then I said:

“Yeah, too bad she has such a bad rap on the internet!”

“Well you’re the one who gave it to her!” Cortney pointed out.

Ah, so true. Generally I write about how crazy Sophie is, and how crazy she makes me, and the crazy things she makes me DO…but she really is my sweetheart girl. She’s hilariously funny and smart, and such a good singer, and I can’t wait to have real conversations with her!

But yo. Girlfriend is certifiably nuts.

Fast forward to last night, we are at a worship concert at our church (it was a live CD recording! Woohoo!) We’d left our kids with a sitter, but Cortney and Jeremy had brought their two boys, who are 26 months and 8 months (right Cortney?) They were sitting in front of us and they. were. SO. GOOD.

I mean, ridiculously good. Neither one of them fussed a bit and we were in there for and hour and 45 minutes. Bobby and I could have pulled that off with Joshua, but never with Sophie.

Why? You ask. Well, as I explained to Cortney when I was commenting on her little angels, “Sophie doesn’t like corporate singing. OR clapping. So, tonight would have been a problem.”

“Really?” Cortney seemed to find that a little odd.

“Yeah, we didn’t even sing happy birthday to her at her own party. She doesn’t care for it at other people’s parties either. It makes her hysterically cry.”

Evidence: Here’s Sophie at Kate’s 4th birthday party 11 months ago, after my husband had calmed her down post-birthday song. (Look at that FACE!)

sad face

So, you see, my Sophie has a few quirks. She’s as sweet, funny, and beautiful as can be, but people??

She’s crazy!

And I’m crazy about her.

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