Standing practice

A couple of nights ago, Sophie really got into practicing her standing up. She was practicing this on the bed, where falling is extra soft, and if you get tired of standing, bouncing is always an option. She was so into it, every time she dropped down, she'd get right back up and try again. And she tried for so long that it became reminiscent of a boxing match - at first, she'd pop up again without hesitation, but towards the end there, she'd fall over, look woozy and disgruntled, struggle to her feet with much grunting and complaining, and then fall over again almost immediately. (Plus, she'd yell "Adrienne!" every couple of minutes... Odd child.)

Sophie by the tree

We like this picture of Sophie by the Christmas tree at my parents' place. Not much more to say, it's just got a nice feeling to it, we think.

(Note: actually posted by Seagull Boy, logged in as Enviro Girl by accident.)

What goes up can't go down

Just before the Christmas holidays, while at John and Linette's place, Sophie learned to climb stairs. She took to it with such know-how that we were amazed - I guess stairs just fit well with the whole baby/crawling thing.

Over the course of the holiday, she progressed to taking on an entire set of stairs at once, with only a few glances behind her to see the view. Of course, down will be harder, and hasn't been attempted yet. One step at a time.

(Note: actually posted by Seagull Boy, logged in as Enviro Girl by accident.)

Was it a cat I saw?

Before the Christmas holidays, I don't think I've ever seen Sophie scared. She's done her share of screaming, and crying, and general freaking out, but never (that I could tell) because she was scared. That changed when we were at Star and Russ's place, and Blue (their cat) was walking around. At first, Sophie was just interested, because she was up high, and this weird creature was down on the floor. She was watching him when he was in an energetic mood, so she got to see him tearing around the house as only hyper cats can. You could tell she wasn't so sure about his erratic movement, but up high, she was safe.

Then Blue walked by when Sophie was standing on the floor (holding on to a coffee table). He walked by within, say, two or three feet.

This picture is Sophie's reaction. Of course, as good parents, our first thought was "Where's the camera?" Our second thought, of course, was, "Are six pictures enough?" Our third through seventh or eighth thoughts were mainly of how funny the pictures looked, and only around thought nine or so did we think to comfort poor Soph. She recovered quickly, and agreed that the pictures were pretty darn funny.

Sophie's first visit with Santa

The first time Sophie met Santa was at my work's kids' Christmas party in mid December. We were very impressed with the party - there was a magician, a bouncy castle, an arts and crafts table, food and drink galore, goodie bags, and a veritable horde of young 'uns.

Sophie enjoyed meeting Santa, which is to say, she didn't freak out at all. According to Santa, in fact, Sophie was the only wee one who didn't scream when he held her.

All in all, a very good party, even though Sophie was too young to properly thrash the bouncy castle, or eat her weight in sugar, or any of the neat things that we look forward to in coming years.

On her own two feet

While at her Great Aunt Terry's place on December 27th, Sophie practised standing. Kristi caught this video of one of Sophie's longest independent stands yet.

Status update

Wow, it has been a while since our last post - ages, in baby development time. Here's where we stand right now with Sophie:

• she's crawling everywhere
• she's able to stand up on her own, if she has something to grab onto - in her crib, in her playpen, by the couch, by a chair, etc.
• once standing, she can stay there for a long time, balancing with one hand
• she's making lots of noises - her favourite word in the last few days is "huzzah"
• Holly said she was using her index finger to point at things (like streetlights) today, but I haven't seen it yet (not that I don't believe Hol, I'm just excited to see this in action)
• she's just (in the last day or so) started waving in response to people waving at her - her wave is a little fold-in-half hand flap, very sweet
• she laughs a lot at her parents behaving like silly idiots, which only encourages us - tsk, tsk
• just now, she was in a smacking mood, and was happily laying into our couch and the cusions on it
• she just tried peaches, and quite liked them

I guess that's about it for now. More as it develops. We've got a good video of Sophie waving and smacking, maybe we'll try to get that posted before too long.