Live. Laugh. Love.: Sophia at 3 Years & 3 Months

Sophia Grace - age 3 years and 3 months:

July 20th marked another quarter of a year in the life of our little lady.

She's really growing and changing!

The above pictures are pretty recent. The next pictures are from back in May and working up to July.

Some current facts about Sophie:

Clothing & shoe sizes: 3T in pretty much all bottoms, mostly 4T with some 3T for tops (long torso), size 8-9 shoe

Wake time: 8-8:30 a.m. when she wakes on her own (often we wake her at 7:30 on weekdays)

Bed time: 8-8:30 p.m. (though she stays awake in bed for quite awhile)

Nap: daily for 1.5-2 hours

Favorite play things: Books! Dress up clothes and jewelry, any sort of flashcards, kitchen toys, puzzles, flashlights, forts, and whatever her brother likes to play with (Transformers, dinosaurs, cars/trucks).

Favorite books: all of the Pete the Cat books, anything by Mo Willems and suddenly an obsession with Berenstain Bears books.

Favorite foods: yogurt, bananas and most fruits, pancakes, any bread/grain/muffin/etc, anything out of the garden (especially if eaten outside), cheeseburgers, cottage cheese, corn on the cob, nuts and dried fruit, etc.

Typically drinks: 3-6 oz of 1% milk with each meal, water for thirst, which she often chugs from her water bottle or cup.

Potty habits: That's a long, frustrating story... which I will address in another post.

Behavior: She can still very much be a tantrum-throwing stinker, but I feel like we're making headway in reasoning with her and helping her to get her feelings under control when she's upset. She's still quick to throw a fit when something displeases her, but they're shorter and I'm able to get through to her quicker. It's, of course, a work in progress, but she's maturing. Paired with that spitfire personality is a very loving, tender girl with an incredibly sweet side. She loves to be helpful and nurturing as well as to role-play being a mommy or a nurse and looking after her babies and patients.

Closest friends: Sophie's closest pals are still currently the people she sees daily at the babysitters - Mya & Stella and Charli & Jaxson in particular, but she always enjoys interacting with any other kids that she has the opportunity to play with. She doesn't seem to be shy at all, but she also very much enjoys playing by herself and can be found off by herself even with playmates around.

Table manners/behavior: Despite the picture, we've never really had issue with poor table manners with either of our kids. They don't purposely throw or drop food, they're usually pretty polite and complimentary (though complaints are not unheard of), and neither kid does much wiggling or attempting to get down or climb around. We sometimes get silly at our table - usually initiated by Craig - and that can get out of hand - but for the most part, Sophie's biggest issue is her SLOWNESS with eating and lack of focus on the task at hand. She often gets started very earnestly and then sings, talks, plays with her food and draaags out the rest of the meal. ;)

Extracurriculars: We are still in absolutely NO hurry with this. Just like with Will, we want to savor our "unscheduled" family life for as long as possible. There are plenty of organized activities that I'm sure Sophie would enjoy doing... but she's away from home and our family a lot as it is with two full-time, working parents. We cherish our evenings at home to relax and unwind and enjoy meals together as a family. And we love having our Saturday mornings free to hit the library or have big, pancake breakfasts... or both! Preschool is right around the corner and Sophie will get plenty of organized, stimulating activity there. So, just as we did with Will, we are planning to wait until Sophie is four (or nearly four) to consider starting any extracurriculars. And even then, it will likely be karate that she starts with. She loves watching her brother during class and we love the values and discipline and earned praise that the class offers. Sophie has never asked to do anything else so I don't think she's feeling deprived. It's just not on her radar yet. Plus, karate already something we're already participating in, so there will be no interruption to our schedule, except to have two kids getting ready for class instead of one. 30 minutes, once a week. And Little Dragons class is from ages 3-7, so Will can help ease her transition into class if and when she joins.

Emotional behavior & attachment: Sophie is still very much a mama's girl and seems to have increased that lately. But sometimes it almost seems like a game to her to refuse some people of affections when they ask for it and cling to me instead. She's very loving and openly warm and sweet though. And she's far more sociable and secure in new situations than I used to foresee in her as a baby. Our babysitter is wonderful with her and Sophie adores her.

On the same topic, Sophie is not usually quick to cry. Tantrum? Yes. Whine? Of course. But true crying isn't as common. In fact, I've heard her fake cry more often simply as a means of getting soothed and consoled and loved on a bit. She's tough when it comes to physical pain and her first reaction to sadness is to throw a fit before crying. When she gets hurt, she often winces or asks for a bandaid (such a novelty), but often just moves on to whatever she was doing. I love her strength and strong will... annoying as it sometimes is with behavior.

One other emotional behavior point is that she still sucks her thumb... for comfort, reassurance and when sleepy or bored. We lightly tease her for it, but it honestly doesn't bother me while we're at home. Out and about though (and when preschool begins), it drives me crazy simply for the disgusting germs that she's likely putting in her mouth. Ick.

Motor Skills: She's moved up to the "big bike" (Will's old bike with training wheels) and we will definitely be trying her without training wheels sooner than her brother. I really feel he could have done it sooner and she's so strong and coordinated that I think she'll take to it easily. She's also fast! Not much in the endurance department yet :) but she can definitely get from A to B quickly when she wants to. We've seen her sprint across the yard in pursuit of a toy or something and she can really move! At the playground, she's a little monkey - jumping and climbing on everything. And whenever her favorite songs come on, Sophie loves to dance as well.

Learning developments: Pre-reading skills: solid on most uppercase letters and their sounds now (still practicing often), working on lowercase recognition, LOVES books and "pretending" to read on her own, understands reading from left to right and sometimes tries to drag her finger along the real words as she makes up her own, practicings with a few sight words and letter sound blending. Number skills: getting pretty solid on numeral recognition (I'll have to quiz her pretty soon to see where she's at), outstanding at 1:1 correspondence with counting, loves to count things on the pages of books while we read or other objects and play things.

Color knowledge is solid (except she still flip flops black & white sometimes) and shapes are good although I haven't quizzed her recently on some of the harder shapes. Sophie (of course) knows her full name - although she still says "soapy" - and the month and day of her birthday, but doesn't realize yet what "first", "middle" and "last" name mean. We also haven't worked on address and phone number yet, but that will be soon.

Sophie easily understands the concept of real and pretend and also always uses the proper gender words: she/he, her/him. Her speech continues to get better and better though she still sounds a bit lispy - likely from thumb sucking - and I hear her correcting herself on proper context of words. For example, she used to always start a question such as this: "Is I'm... going to Lisa's today?" Now she automatically says "Am I" correctly or corrects herself right after saying it wrong. I am a stickler for using words appropriately and I always gently corret the kids if they say something incorrectly.

Other learned skills: Sophie is learning to dress herself, brush her own teeth and wipe after using the toilet. Both kids have been interested in washing themselves in the tub lately, so we've been allowing that more as well (with supervision). She often has to be reminded not to leave toys in doorways and scattered over the floor, but is getting better at picking up after herself when reminded. She's good about removing her shoes and putting them where they belong when we come in the house and I'm hopeful that we can do the same with jackets when that season arrives again. Sophie is careful with glasses and dishes when helping to set the table. She helps let the dog in and out of the house as needed and loves to feed him when I ask, though that's mostly Will's job now.

At bedtime, Sophie has taken to sleeping sideways on her bed... for several months now. She has a small white blanket that she prefers to be covered with and she sleeps on her pillow pet. :) At night when we check on her before going to bed, if she stirs at all, it's usually accompanied by the funniest jibberish of "language" that sounds Japanese. It never makes sense and we always crack up over it.

Sophie is fun loving and sweet and she is thoroughly enjoying the summer.

But I know she is sooooo looking forward to preschool in about a month. She loves to look at and play with her back pack and lunch box and she talks about school often.

This summer she has been LOVING to swim as often as she can and she's getting more and more confident, even jumping into the deep end a couple of times! She loves our garden, riding her bike, eating popsicles and ice cream, playing with cousins, swinging and playing at the playground, meeting new friends, tons of reading and any adventures we take.