Birthday Bruise

I was really excited today because Sophia got invited to a birthday party for our friend's 3 year old boy. She had a blast with the other kids. She ate pizza, watermelon and birthday cake, and was in a great mood despite being sick earlier this week.
Everything was going great until we lined the kids up to take a picture. For some reason, the 3 year old boy standing next to Sophia decided to grab the back of her head, and shove it straight into the ground! I was horrified and it took everything I had to fight back the tears! Sophia falls daily, and gets accidently knocked down all the time by Trent and other kids, but this is the first time anyone has deliberately tried to hurt her. It just broke my heart!
The good news is that the little boy apologized and so did his parents. Sophia cried for awhile, but quickly perked back up and had fun the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately, it quickly became evident that Sophia's poor little nose and forehead took most of the impact. My poor baby!

11 Months

As Sophia gets closer to the one year mark, it is getting harder and harder to keep track of how much she is learning and changing. She had a physical this month and measured 23 pounds and 29 1/2 inches. That puts her at the 90th percentile for both. She was previously over the 100 percent mark for height, but they used a new gadget to measure her this time so I think that may have made a difference.
Sophia still turns red with rage when we try to encourage her to crawl, but she has started scooting around on her butt a little, which is pretty cute. She is getting more steady on her feet and we have had to start baracading her in the family room with her large toys. When she is in an unfamiliar environment, she still prefers to hold our hands, which makes it easy to keep her out of trouble. When at home, she loves to pick things up around the house and walk room to room with them. For some strange reason, Will's boxer shorts are one of her favorite items to carry. I hate to say it, but she digs them out of the dirty clothes hamper in our bedroom, so no, they are not clean!
Unfortunately, the increase in walking as led to an increase in falling, and Sophia ends up with a bruise or mark on her noggin about once a week. She seems to be a pretty tough kiddo so far and gets back on her feet quickly.
The biggest change this month has been her speech. She now says duck ("duh"), Daddy, and Mom (yeah!!). She whispers "dah" whenever she sees Trent, but I'm not quite sure whether she's trying to say dog or Trent. I think she is saying "night-night" too, but I'm not 100% convinced yet. She is constantly talking jibberish rather than babbling. Her doctor, the staff at the doctor's office, and the staff at the church nursey have all commented about what a chatterbox she is. She must get that from her Aunt Christy!!
She has learned to "give me five" and she giggles everytime we pull our hand away because she is "too slow!" She was pointing to Mommy's nose and ear (it was actually more like pinching than pointing!) but she seems to have tired of that game. She mimics some of our daily activities by putting our chapstick up to her mouth and sipping from our empty coffee cups. She also claps everytime we sing If You're Happy and You Know It.

As each day passes, I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that less than a year ago she was a tiny infant. Amazing!!

Bittersweet

This weekend we decided to go up to the Skeet Retreat. It has been rented out since July and we got a TON of snow last week, so we were excited to finally head up to the mountains. We got there Friday evening fairly early, but Sophia was NOT excited about sleeping in the pack'n play, so it took us a couple hours to finally get settled in.
When we woke up the next morning, we were shocked at how much snow was on the ground. There was easily over 4 feet, with drifts up to 10 feet high and icicles several feet long!

Although it was snowing, we went ahead and drove into town and ate breakfast at our favorite diner. They gave Sophia a large basket of toys to play with, which she happily threw on the ground one by one! She also got to try biscuits and gravy for the first time, and she was a huge fan!

Will's friend Greg "Hafner" drove up and the 2 of them spent the afternoon skiing while Sophia, Trent and I hung out at the condo.

Sophia looked so stinkin cute all bundled up in her winter jacket!
I took Sophia out to play in the snow thinking she'd enjoy it for about 90 seconds at the most, but she had a blast! She grabbed a snowball in each hand and walked around with a huge smile on her face, even as her hands turned purple!

So why is this bittersweet? This is the sign now hanging outside:

While we were at breakfast, our realtor met with us and we signed the papers to go ahead and put the condo on the market. It's a decision we've battled with for the last 2 years, and it was a very tough one to make, but we think it is the right one. We also have a family set to ski lease it starting Jan 25th, so we may not get to see the Retreat until it's time to clean our stuff out for the next owners.

SO if you know anyone interested in buying a charming 2 bedroom/2 bath, fully furnished condo in the Tahoe area, have them call the number on the sign!!

Thoughts of a Proud Dad

"Kisses" from Sophia

After getting his first set of "Daddy Days" in awhile, Will sent the following email out to his family.

You wouldn't believe our little girl. After having her all day today and yesterday, I am amazed how quickly she is growing up. She walks all over the place (as long as we put her on her feet), and can even stop, turn, start again, change directions, and go around a moving object (Trent). We can't leave her "cruising" around the furniture anymore, because we turn our back for one second, and she's halfway across the room, far out of reach of anything to grab on to.It's very fun and exciting for me. But it's still kinda nice to know that if I sit her on her bum she won't be going anywhere.

She's always doing cute things too. Today she was sitting on our bed playing with one of my financial planning magazines while I did some laundry. I left her sight for one second and I came back in the room just as she ripped a whole page out of the magazine.I exclaimed "Sophia!" and she looked up at me with a startled look. Then she tucked her chin down, looked coyly back up at me, and reached her arm out with the page in her hand - trying to give it to me so I wouldn't be mad. Things like this make us laugh all the time!

And then there's her eating!! Tonight she had two huge pieces of ravioli, a big slice of pineapple, and a gerber vegetable. She's already being weaned off of baby food. For lunch I give her a piece of sliced lunch meat, string cheese, vegetable, and cinnamon apple sauce. It would be a meal for most grown ups!

I'm sure she can't wait to see everyone when ya'llcome out in several weeks....

Will

I once saw a onsie that said "My fingers may be small, but they're big enough to wrap my Daddy around!" Sophia's definitely got her Daddy wrapped up tight!

Table Manners

Now that Sophia is eating more table foods, she is developing her own set of table manners. Here are a few I've picked up on:
1. Meals should not be eaten with your socks on. (Notice the pitiful expression) Ahhhhh....much better now
2. You should never have more than three pieces of food on your tray at once. If you do have more than three pieces of food, the extras should be thrown on the floor or given directly to the dog.

3. You should make this face if any of the following situations should occur:
a. You are given a food you do NOT like
b. You are given a food you DO like, but you do NOT want any of it at that particular moment
c. You are given a food you DO like, and you DO want it at that particular moment, but you do NOT want someone to feed it to you. You'd prefer to do it by yourself. That's it for now, but I'm sure I'll be able to add more to the list soon!

Baby's First Christmas

Sophia's introduction to Christmas began during our Thanksgiving trip when we took her and Katherine to see Santa. Sophia stared at Santa for about 3 seconds...and then the terror set in! She saw Santa 2 more times this year, and she had the same reaction each time. For Katherine, the terror was instantaneous, and I have a feeling it'll be the same for Sophia next year. Aunt Traice and Gramma drove up on the Sunday before Christmas. Although Sophia hadn't seen Aunt Traice in a couple of months, the two hit it off immediately. Sophia thinks everything Aunt Traice does is totally entertaining.
Here's a video of Aunt Traice dropping leftover Halloween candy into a bowl, and although Sophia was battling a case of the hiccups, she giggled every time!

We spent Christmas Eve in Napa at Aunt Susie and Uncle Greg's house. We were excited to get Sophia together with my cousin Erica's 2 boys, who are both under the age of 3.The kids didn't really want anything to do with one another, and Sophia was far more interested in chasing the cat around. Oh well, maybe next year they'll have more fun together. Sophia definitely looked cute in the Christmas outfit my BFF Jennie gave her!
Daddy came home from work at about 10:30pm on Christmas Eve. We woke up bright and early on Christmas morning to see what gifts Santa had delivered.

Sophia had a great time pulling her gifts out of her stocking.
Sophia's first gift was from Gramma. She had surprised us all by refinishing the old rocking ram that my grandfather gave me for my first Christmas (it is a ram rather than a horse in honor of my astrological sign of Aries)
Santa must have seen what a good girl Sophia was, because she got lots of presents. It would take me forever to list everything she received, but one of her favorites is a toy piano from Moyses.
She was also really excited to receive a toy Elmo from Sharky, one of Daddy's U2 buddies.

On Christmas day, we drove to the Bay Area to Aunt Sandi and Uncle Mike's house. We met Grandpa and the rest of the Caretto clan there. The only rule in Aunt Sandi's house was that there weren't any rules. Sophia was allowed to touch and/or break whatever she fancied. She went straight for the digital camera, but fortunately she didn't break it.
Gramma stayed one extra day before heading back home. Sophia and Trent enjoyed the last bit of spoiling by sharing Gramma's toast.
I think Sophia was a little overwhelmed by her first Christmas, but hopefully she'll be more aware of what's going on next year. She is definitely enjoying all the new toys and books she received, and is looking darn cute in her new clothes!

Like Mother Like Daughter

I know the entry about Sophia's first Christmas is long overdue, but I'm having some technical difficulties getting the pictures from Gramma's camera onto my computer. In the meantime, I thought I'd share the gift Sophia gave her Gramma.
The first pictures are of me with my mom, followed by pictures of me and Sophia.




And here is Gramma trying unsuccessfully to hold back tears after she opened her gift: