Sophia is 22 Months!

This is kind of blowing my mind. Sophia is 22 months old!

When Will was exactly her age, my belly was ginormous and my head was filled with all sorts of worries about how my baby boy's world was about to change.

{Will at 22 months}

And less than two weeks later, we welcomed a brand new baby Sophia into our lives.

{Note the drastic wardrobe difference on Will. That's Ohio's spring weather for ya'!}
I CANNOT even fathom bringing a newborn baby home with a 22 month old toddler right now. But then, I did have eight-ish months to prepare myself the last time. Sophia is still very much my baby. She's growing ultra-fast, of course. But we had already moved Will into his big bed at this point of his life! What? No way is she ready for that. She's just a baby!

P.S. - Please allow me to justify the Buddha belly you see on her in these pictures. Does anyone else's child do this? She looks like she has a tiny little waist when she wakes up every morning. But right after every meal, she suddenly looks like a little Buddha baby as she "let's it all hang out". Haha! :) Don't we all? This particular belly was filled with two oatmeal pancakes, ~1/3 cup yogurt, ~1/2 cup strawberries, 1/2 of a banana and ~3-4oz of milk. Ya - my kids are hogs at the breakfast table. In the bath tub after dinner, I swear she looks pregnant!

Some of the highlights of Sophie's 22nd month include:

lots of bubble baths, buddying up with Brutus, playing on the living room jungle gym (a.k.a. furniture pushed together while painting), lots of weekend fun including: Sylvania Playground, ice skating at Tam-o-Shanter, and first time actually playing at Imagination Station, Valentine crafts, Valentine games and food, and lots of reading!

It's been a fun month!

One of Sophie's recent skills (actually, for about a month now... I forgot to mention it last month), is that she frequently walks upright up and down the stairs holding the railing now. She seems a smidge nervous but I'm sure her desire to be like her big brother outweighs that. She does very well for herself, but I'm always watching her closely. {Will's face cracks me up in this picture.}

If I remember correctly, Will was 2 1/2 when he started doing this.

Ha - so proud. :)

Side note: this is her one and only Boden shirt that I mentioned awhile back and it finally fits her. I love the colors and the print!

Love this face.

Sophie has turned another huge corner with her interest in reading. She will sit and listen to much longer stories now and I've actually started checking out more books specifically for her on our library visits. Our usual bedtime routine now includes at least 3-5 books, sometimes more. I remember Will still liked repetition with his bedtime books every night at this age, and Sophie does too. But she's starting to branch out a little more and that's very exciting for me! She also LOVES to carry around Will's Dora book with about six short stories in it. She can just sit and entertain herself with the pictures for an impressive amount of time.

Speaking of bedtime (and nap time), Sophie's got a silly habit lately of calling for us when she wakes from sleep, and then playing hard to get when we go in to get her. Literally! She runs around in her crib, falls down (on purpose) and rolls all over to make it harder for you to pick her up. She thinks this is funny. As you can see, she still sleeps in her sleep sack, but this was the first time she got it undone by herself. Such a lady-like pose, no? And it always cracks me up when toddlers think you can't see them if they cover their own eyes. :)

Finally succumbing to daddy's coaxing her out of the crib. Silly girl.

Will and I have noticed lately that Sophie's hair (when wet) comes down to her shoulder blades! This isn't even the best depiction of that, but it's really getting long! Hard to tell sometimes with all the fluffy curl. But I LOVE that too. I have a ton more new things to add to Sophie's vocabulary list. I'm sorry... I know this is totally boring for anyone reading this. But for now, this is the only place I'm recording these things (there just isn't room for all this stuff in the baby book!) and I don't want to forget.

First, here's a bunch of single words she's picked up:

-"pock-a-pull" (popsicle)

-she's started calling us "Guys!" in desperation when she wants our attention

-"pancakes", "saw-ber-wee"?? (strawberry)

-"broken"

-"animal" and "animal a-trouble" (animal in trouble) from the Diego song

-"house"

-"circle" & "square"

-"geen" (green)

-"horse", "bay-ga-bug" (ladybug), "rhino", "kay-ga-goo" (kangaroo) & "baby joey"

-"wiggle, wiggle, wiggle" (wiggling her body)

But she's also really picking up the skill of stringing together short sentences. It seems she jumped into this almost at the same time that she started talking at all. Like she went from almost nothing to 2-3 word sentences all at once. I still don't think she's really excelling in vocabulary the way Will did, but she's probably making sentences a little sooner than he did.

Here's a little list of what I managed to jot down on paper when I remembered:

-"I wuh you" (I love you)

-"Where you going, Wool?" (she now calls Will, Wool... like a sheep's wool)

-"What is it?" (pointing to animals/objects/pictures in a book - I love the curiosity!)

-"Oh no!" (whenever we start the vacuum)

-"Soapy's turn!" (whenever we're practicing taking turns and she's getting antsy)

-"Money Mudhen" (referring to Will's little stuffed mascot of the Toledo Mudhens - his name is actually 'Muddy')

-"I eat, mommy!" (standing in front of her high chair and demanding food)

-" 'mon Wool!" (c'mon Will)

-a quick funny from today... Sophie woke up before Will from nap and I went in to get her up and change her diaper... while on the changing table, we hear Will call out for me, wanting to get up... Sophie's eyes get wide like she's worried for him and she yells in desperation: "I coming, Wool!"... I thought that was just the sweetest, funniest thing... she repeated it a couple times till I got her down :)

Sophie has become a little mimic when playing with her brother. She follows him around and does what he does and repeats what he says. Will seems to love it and often turns it into 'follow the leader'.

Another big interest lately has been counting. She has been really into counting everything, especially when she sees quite a few of something in books. She'll say "count!" and hold her pointer finger out for you to point with her. She never says "1" - she waits for you to initiate that - but she knows "2, 3, 4". Then she usually says "3" again instead of "5". And then she knows "6" and "7" and then skips to "9". Not bad! She also enjoys hearing the ABC song but really only knows those first three in order. :)

Oh my goodness... Sophie has fallen madly in love with her daddy! They spend every day together right now and their relationship has grown so much because of it. That's a blessing that would normally never have been possible, so I'm clutching every ounce of the good that's come out of this situation. Just as Will does, Sophie appreciates her daddy's silliness and playfulness. He's always down on the floor being the "fun dad".

So cute.

When I get home in the evenings, she clings to me and she often cries when I leave, but I can see the trust she has in her daddy that was not nearly as strong before, and I cherish that. He can console her now when she's sad and she looks and asks for him and loves to play and snuggle with him. I have been longing for that bond for them since the day she was born and it makes my heart feel so full.

Happy 22 months, my sweet girl! I love you SO much!

XOXO, Mom