She's crawling!

Batten the hatches and child-proof the condo, Sophie is crawling! About a week ago she realized that she could move her hands forward while on hands and knees. This resulted in some freestyle wriggling/crawling that has now progressed into a proper front crawl. Her new abilities have extended into the sitting area and she can now sit up on her own as well. Last night we lowered the crib mattress to the bottom setting to avoid any Sophie-escaping-the-crib incidents. Life as we know it is changing on a daily basis. Gotta go rescue my dear daughter, she's currently bumping her head against the wall and realizing it's solid.

Now that's recycling

For more than half of Sophie's life (since July!) we've been hoarding our recycling, due to the wonderfully elongated civic strike. Even though the garbage/recycling part of the strike was settled weeks ago, we've been unable to recycle our precious stockpile, because of what appears to be a combination of two factors: a multitude of other apartment-dwellers in similar situations, and a seemingly non-existent recycling pick-up service, even after all beefs with the city were forgiven and forgotten.

But tonight, oh night of nights, I was throwing out the garbage, when what should meet my disbelieving eyes but a completely empty recycling bin! Miracle of miracles! I rushed back upstairs and started the Herculean task of carting our entire stash (including approximately 60,000 formula cans) down the hall, past the yappy dog, into the alley, past the rotting overturned sofa, and into the bin in a crashing avalanche of freedom! It took me three trips, but we're finally rid of it all.

What a relief. Goodbye, fruit flies. Hello, a place to put our vacuum cleaner.

Happy Halloween from Sophie!

Here she is all dressed up in her ducky costume from her great-grandparents in Pennsylvania. All the kids at mom and baby fitness were dressed up today and it was very cute!


Sophie hanging out with our pumpkins, pre-carving. They eventually became Popeye, Olive Oyl and Swee'Pea.

Fun with food

Our one photo of Sophie on her seven month birthday is this one. She was enjoying her rice cereal so much that she lunged forward, ready for the next bite and collided with the oncoming spoon full of goo.


Sophie and Mommy went for a lovely autumn walk today and picked up all this yummy organic produce. We're looking forward to feeding Sophie potatoes, squash, applesauce, pears, bananas, avocado and yams. As you can see, she's already ready to get started!

A fan of fans

A few things seem to utterly fascinate Sophie, to capture her attention and make her happy. One is watching daddy brush his teeth. (This also makes mommy happy.) Another is watching the street outside from our 3rd story vantage point, seeing all the cars go past. And another is ceiling fans.

Her experience with ceiling fans is rather limited so far, but she loved both the ones at her grandparents' houses - even the fan two (high) stories up - she focused on it like nobody's business. And today, when we were attempting to buy her some mittens for the winter, she was twisting and turning in my grasp, trying to get a good vantage point to see the ceiling fan in the store, and then she just stared and smiled and giggled at it until we pulled her away from it, some hours later.

I'm not sure what the point of this is. Babies like funny stuff, I guess.

The first appearance of Mr. Bun

We did something rare today, and actually got a toy for Sophie - a little blue rabbit that she took a shine to while we were buying diaper covers. She ripped the tag off and stuffed his face in her mouth while we were still in the store, so it's probably just as well that we went ahead with the purchase.



I don't know if it'll stick or not, but I named him Mr. Bun, after Susie Derkins' stuffed bunny in Calvin and Hobbes. Sophie found that she could grab him by the (soft) tail and hit daddy in the face with Mr. Bun's (hard) head, in a kind of medieval morning star style. What fun!

It's funny, the stuff you think of when buying a stuffed rabbit... Will this toy be played with once, then ignored for ever more, or will it become a favourite? Maybe Mr. Bun will be the toy you always hear about, the one that the child couldn't live without, the one whose temporary disappearances brought on screaming fits by the child, and muttered curses by the parents... Maybe will we eventually have a humourous story about how we had to rescue Mr. Bun (sans ears) from the top of a tree in Winnipeg after the infamous "squirrel incident". Who knows? Time will tell.

Good luck, Mr. Bun.

Sophie and her Dad

Out for a walk on Broadway with Soph all cosy in her bear suit.