Heaven help us!

Sophie’s learned she can dress herself…

This is the first outfit that Sophie’s ever picked out and put on by herself.  I usually am trying to corner her somewhere in the house with a outfit I have picked out.  I guess it never occurred to her until now.  She shut herself in her room and told me not to come in.  It took some struggling and she came out with the shirt on backwards and mumbled a “help please.” But after the shirt was turned around she was quite proud!

I am scared where her wild imagination will take her in how she dresses!  I’m thinking I should establish times where it’s “mommy’s turn” to choose and times when it’s Sophie’s turn, so she doesn’t go somewhere too important dressed like a clown.  We did go to Costco this morning, in this lovely outfit, at least it doesn’t clash!

I was reading some old blog posts about Sophie as a 2 year old yesterday and was surprised how much of it I had forgotten!  So I want to take a quick moment to document what she’s doing as a 3 and 3/4 year old:

• Interested in reading, Sophie’s known all the letters and their sounds for quite awhile.  In the past couple months she’s starting announcing what letter words we say start with.  For example, “Sophie, listen to Mommy!”  “Mmmmommy, that starts with M Mom!”  Names are her favorite.  Just recently though she has shown interest in what things say and is always asking me, or guessing.  For example:  (looking at a Cheerios box) “Mom, does this say chocolate cereal?” (we have chocolate Cheerios)  “It says Chocolate Cheerios, good job!”  Then she’ll point to the correct words and “read” them.
• Loves to pretend.  Sophie is almost always pretending to be one animal or another.  Her favorites are (and their names): a race horse or zebra (Stripes), a doggy (Bolt or Perry), a cat (Mittens), a sheep (Little Peep), and a lion (Simba or Nala).  She is serious about her character too, if you call her Sophie when she’s pretending to be something else she’s come out of character to say “No, I’m PERRY!” But she won’t speak otherwise, she will meow, whinny, etc. in different tones to try and make her point.  She is using sign language a lot so she doesn’t have to use human words.  The nursery workers expect it, when we drop her off they ask what she is today.  I find myself saying things like “Remember, there are no dogs at school Sophie.  You have to be a girl during school ok?”  or “We don’t super-bark our friends!”
• Names her toys.  All of her stuffed animals have names and most of them stick for at least a couple months at a time.  The strangest one is her stick horse’s name, I am not sure how to type it because it’s hard to even understand her say it, but my best guess is Tyrolivingon.  Weird, I know.  No idea where she got it, but it’s been consistent for nearly a year now I think.  I think it’s funny how she always calls me Mom but if she’s speaking for one of her toys she’ll address me as Jessica.
• Loves her sister.  Sophie is always looking out for Tessa.  If Tess is trying to ask me something and I am busy Sophie will just yell at the top of her lungs, “MOM TESSA WANTS SOME MILK!!” (or whatever it is)  Ironically, Sophie also spends a lot of her time tormenting Tessa.  She likes to push her down, jump on top of her, take things away from her, and just tease her in anyway that will get a rise out of poor Tess.  As a result Tessa knows how to either fight or scream for help and they have a pretty good balance I’d say.
• Likes to compliment.  Her most commonly used phrase has to be, “I like your ____.”  She says it to me all day, friends, and strangers.  It’s very sweet how much she notices about people and wants to mention.  Sometimes though, it comes off kind of rude.  For example, we were over at a neighbor’s house who is blind helping her get settled in her new apartment.  Sophie says, “I LOVE your sharp teeth!”  Not funny, since she has several missing teeth and the ones remaining are in poor condition making them look “sharp.”  Once we were outside I told Sophie not to tell her that her teeth were sharp, just pretty.  Sophie, being the bright girl she is, next time we were over said, “I love your diamond teeth, they are pointy like diamonds!”  Bless her sweet little heart, she would never take offense to such a compliment.  And I hope that our neighbor didn’t either!
• Plays ROUGH!  We think she’s ready to be a line backer.  Sit down on a the couch in our house and prepare yourself to get pumbled!  Sophie loves to wrestle, jump on, and pull on people.  She’ll get a running start and just slam into you.  She knows she can’t hit so she’s always finding new inventive ways to collide with others.  Like swinging her arms largely when she just happens to be passing by Tessa.  Tessa cries, Sophie says, “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident.  I was just walking!”  Her dad can take it and will just block all of her attacks including jump kicks and upper cuts while reading a book or watching TV without hardly trying.  I on the other hand can’t take it and send her to timeout for the similar attempts all day long. :)  I have to laugh at mom’s of little boys that warn me they like to play rough and they might scare poor Sophie.  It’s not 5 minutes before they are standing on a chair trying to get out of her reach or hiding in a corner.  Between her expert wrestling moves and super-barks no one dares cross her.
• Has a sweet side too.  Sophie likes to climb in bed with me every morning around 7 and sleep another half hour or so cuddled up.  She gets really excited about when mom or dad get home from being gone somewhere.  And the last few nights I’ve had stuff late at the church.  When I walk in she’ll supposedly sleeping but will quickly come out of her room and hug me and say, “I’m so glad you’re home Mom!” 
• Baby talks to babies.  I love watching her play with babies, she talks to them in the same funny voice that I subconsciously use.  “Ohhhh, look at the tiny baby!  So so cute!”

Sophie you are such a special little girl and we are so glad you are part of our family!