Not shy

Tricia went for her 20-week ultrasound today, and here are the screenshots. The first one is of the new little one's feet, not demon eyes if you are confused. Then a couple profile shots and a couple 3-d shots showing the cute little yet-to-see-the-light-of-day face.








All is well with the new little one, heart is pumping, organs are in the right place, etc. Measurements from the ultrasound indicate that Tricia is now at 19 weeks 5 days, which revises the due date to October 10, not that far off really.

Tricia, Sophia and I all went to the ultrasound place, but Sophia and I were not allowed in until the technician had performed all of the diagnostic measurements that she needed. After that, we were called in to have a look. Sophia was quite interested in the whole process, what with mommy on her back with strange blue goo on her belly (conductive gel) and this great big 'puter with strange pictures on it. We looked at the head, and at the face, and arms and legs and ...

I thought I saw something.

I didn't mean to - Tricia and I were planning not to find out the gender of the new little one until the delivery date. I wasn't sure if Tricia had seen or not, so when the technician said "do you want to know if it's a boy or a girl?", I looked at Tricia and said "I don't really care - it's up to you."

Little did I know, she had glimpsed the evidence as well.

We went back and forth a bit, each saying " I don't know, it's up to you" and then finally Tricia looked at the technician and said "is it a boy?"

She said "Yes, it is. Did you see?" and we both said "Yes, we did."

It was pretty hard to miss.

Our new little boy really isn't shy...

Long overdue language update

So I promised a while ago to give an update on Sophia's language, and a lot has happened in that department since then. Here's a summary of where she is now.

Parroting
Sophia is now a complete parrot. She will say anything we say, and her pronunciation is really quite good, depending on the word. Listening to her every day helps a lot as well - there are a few words we understand when she says them (parroting or no), that other folks are completely confused by (bakalo = bicycle), but when she's parroting, it's pretty clear what she is saying. And since she parrots nonsense words as readily as real words, this alone isn't much evidence of cognition, but as you will see, we have plenty of other evidence.

One consequence of parroting is that she isn't great at voicing choices yet. If I give her a list of options, she invariably chooses the last one (since that's the last one she heard). If we offer her two snacks, she'll reach for the one she wants, so actually making choices is fine, and she is regularly adamant about what she wants and will make it clear when what she want is not what is provided, but choosing from a list isn't quite there yet.

Vocabulary
As can be expected, her vocabulary is exploding. She has subcategories for many things now, differentiating, for example, between "berry", "blueberry", "strawberry" etc. It would take too long to list everything she can say, but the number of words she is using, in the correct context, without prompting, is astounding. Frequently, she hears airplanes going overhead and will say "Airplane!" usually before we can hear it. Today, she heard a noise and said "Hapacopper" and we weren't sure what she was talking about until the noise got louder and indeed it was a helicopter. Not only is it a word in her vocabulary, but she can differentiate between airplanes and helicopters by the sound they make.

Sentences
Sophia has officially graduated to noun-verb pairings, modifiers, even articles and pronouns. She routinely makes original parings that she hasn't heard before. More and more these are including possessives, like "Daddy shirt" and "Mommy 'puter" (for the laptop Tricia spends more time on). She uses "one" as an article, as in "one book" or "one carrot." "Pretty ____" is commonplace (pretty flower, pretty tree, pretty dress, pretty pajamas), and yesterday in church she said "pretty window" looking at the stained glass. Here are just a few other "Sophia original" sentences:

• You read it? (asking someone to read a book)
  
• bye-bye lub yoo
  
• okay all done
  
• william photo? (asking to see a picture of her friend william)
  
• dwa dwa paper. (can I have some paper to draw?)
  
• trampoline boing boing jumping!
  
• daddy tickle you!
  
• watch fraggle rock? Dance! (she loves to see those fraggles dance)
  
• nana pappa 'cuber (nanna and poppa are in vancouver)
  
• grampa gramma winnipeg.
  
• happee happee birdee to you (ok, not original, but loves to say it, even when no birthday is evident)
  
• happee mama day (took some training, but well worth it)
  

The best ones, though, are when sophie will ramble on for a minute or two with what sounds like random syllables, but clearly is something of critical importance. she really does go on and on.

Associations
Sophia is getting better at making abstract connections between language, objects, and activities at other times of day. For example, we were sitting in her bed and she pointed at the star on her sheet and said "twinkle star brush teeth!" Now it helps to know that "twinkle twinkle little star" is the song we sing while we are brushing her teeth, so she puts in enough time. So she saw a star, linked it to the song "twinkle twinkle little star" and linked that to brushing teeth. Pretty abstract, if you ask me.

Memory
She's getting much better at re-telling stories and activities later in the day. For example, we spent the morning in Brora yesterday, at church. 10 minutes into the service, she got bored and started babbling, making comments about her mother's service etc, so we went outside to wander around. We heard a big train and watched it go by down the tracks (about a hundred potash cars, if you care). then we saw a big truck drive by, and then we saw a horse in a pasture and went up to say hi, then we saw a tractor come in to the field across the road, deploy a great big spring cultivator, and proceed to stir up dust and cultivate the field. we also saw some birds and flowers and a friendly but mangy dog wandering around the prairie. Later that day when she was talking to Grandma and Grandpa, she could recite many of the things we had seen that morning. Tracktor, Train, Truck, Horsey, Birds, Flowers, Dog. and in the evening, she started rattling off the list again, unprompted.

Manners
She says please and thank-you. Considerable prompting is required, but we are to the point where "What do you say" results in "peese" before she gets whatever she is asking for, and a timid "ten-kew" afterward.

Completion
She is getting good at recognizing context and filling in the blanks. She offers several letters in the alphabet as we go through, and all we need to say is "one" and she'll say "Two, Threeeeeeee!" She also routinely fills in the blank when reading books she likes. Munch books work well for this, including "murmel murmel murmel," but she is also very good at recounting the stories of the "Mr Men" books. She particularly likes "little miss naughty" and will go around the house with the book in one hand, tweaking her nose with the other (you have to know the story).

Letters
So last month we saw that she identified the letter "H", but it appeared to only be a fluke because all other letters were also "H". Well it turns out her little mind was working on making associations between letters and what they sound like, because now she can regularly identify several letters, including the first few letters in her name (she mistakes "I" for "1", but don't we all...), and she can recognize her name when written. Here's proof:



Oh, and a couple photos of her pigtails, which you may have noticed in the video. Her comment? "pretty hair!"




Colours

Alas, with all this progress, colours are still a complete mystery to her. She knows the words for colours and will repeat and sometimes originate them, but they are always wrong. "What colour is this" may produce "green" or "blue" or "yellow", but it has no relation to the colour of the object, and all subsequent objects are also labeled "green" or "blue" or "yellow". It will come with time...

Sunglasses and Wafna

Sophia has new sunglasses. Ladybug sunglasses.



Oh, and here is the long-promised "wafna" video...

Summersaults, trampolines and such things.

We enrolled Sophia in a second session of gymnastics. She seems to enjoy it just as much as the first time, but with two added bonuses: Sophia's pal, William (and his daddy), have joined the class, and we have a new instructor who is really great with the kids! It's been fun, although alot more work for mommy now that she's packed on a couple of extra baby pounds. Daddy has even been able to take Sophia through the circuit, and she's had a cheering section twice now --both sets of grandparents have been witness to her gymnastic skill!

We have had a couple of small bumps though....there is one exceptionally long yellow slide, that if you don't hold on to Sophia, she goes down too fast and bumps her head. When this happens, it takes her a little while before she's ready to go back into the circuit again. And curiously, well maybe not so curiously as this makes sense to me, she has developed a fairly strong aversion to the wood ladders they have for the kids to climb up. The space between the rungs is fairly large, and I think it freaks her out a little. She puts up a fight whenever we go near them. So, we will give them a try at each session, and if she still balks at them, we will skip 'em. Makes sense, right?

We did have a new thing happen this week....in at least one of the circuits, there is a long balance beam (close to the ground) that the kids have to walk on. Now usually I have to walk beside Sophia while holding her hands, because she has the attention span of a goldfish in that place, what with all the other things happening, and she loses her footing. Well, this week, Iona (the coach) offered to lead Sophia while she held onto a hoola hoop. Here's the picture...Iona standing in front holding the hoop, with Sophia walking the balance beam holding the other end of the hoop. Where's mommy? Standing beside her with her hands out just in case. Sophia needed to be able to see me, or else she got nervous, but she managed to walk the beam at least twice without being held! What an accomplishment!

Running full tilt in the play area. We always go about half an hour before our session so that Sophia can take advantage of the toys etc. in the playarea and I can have a lovely latte. It works for both of us! :)

One of the many slides in the play area.

Heading through the tunnel....Sophia loves this part of the circuit! Too much fun!

One of the frightening ladders. That day she would try it with Daddy, but the next week, with Mommy, there was no way!

Being bounced around by Daddy. I *think* they are supposed to run down this particular trampoline (it's not the regular really bouncy kind) but that morning Sophia just decided to lay down, and Daddy started bouncing. Gotta love the look of pure joy!

Most days, classes end with a turn in the foam pit and then head off for stamps (which really Sophia's most favorite part!). The foam pit has a trampoline on the bottom and is full of these yellow and green soft foam squares. Sophie hasn't mastered the whole jumping in routine, but LOVES being thrown in by Daddy. It's really the only place where throwing your children around is both encouraged and safe.

I am not sure who had more fun....Daddy or Sophia!

"Pretty lowies"

With the new baby coming in October, David and I decided it was time to prepare Sophia's big girl room. We started by getting Nana Gladys to help David with the painting of the base colour in the room, while I spent time copying and cutting stencils for the wall. We decided to go a little girlie with the colours, but in a sophisticated kind of way....so, no princesses, or Dora, or such. Just flowers...

Here's what I stenciled on the wall