Happy New Year

So Sofia is getting big. She is talking so much and pretty much runs around the house like little lightening bolt. For Christmas we got an awesome toy organizer that I am able to use to help keep her toys sorted. I know it sounds geeky but it is actually a very helpful teaching tool. I can tell her it is time to do "shapes" and she goes and gets her bucket with shapes. It is also helping to teach her about clean up (although it would be unreasonable for me to think she would be doing clean-up at this age). Sofia loves animal time, music time, reading time, and especially playdoh/art time.

Some of her new words and phrases are "banana" (her first word other than mama), "hi muma!" (she likes this one when she first wakes up and is looking right at my face), "nuh-night papa" ( after she wakes me up, she points over at Felipe who is still "nuh -nights-ing"), "Melmo" (Elmo), "Memo" (Nemo), Meh-meh (Mimi), Buh bub (bubble), San-na (Santa), Saaaht? (what's that?), pee-pee (self explanatory), ssssssss (snake), "guhhhhhh"-with a rolled h sound that goes on forever as her eyes get really really big (this is her lion, goat, zebra, giraffe sound), and my favorite is the Monkey where she doesn't really say the word, she just puts her arms in her armpits and moves them up and down while she chirps like a bird!

She is also loving to sing lots of songs with me and Felipe. I definitely love this age. Even though she is still very active, at this age I can see her learning. She picks things up so quickly. Which brings me to the Potty. Felipe's parents are in town and have been staying with us. I have been asking his mom lots of quesitons about Felipe when he was little because Sofia seems to be very similar to the way he was. So his mom told me tha the was fully potty-trained at 9 months (which is crazy~ but cool!). So i thought that maybe I would start to introduce Fifi to the pot chair (as everyone in my family seems to be calling it). So I got one of the ones that goes on the seat of our toilet. Everyday this week i put her on the potty and we talked about it, and she got to press the button and it was a really big deal! But, no pressure. I don't expect her to use it. I just want it to be something fun that she gets used to seeing and associating with diapers and bathroom stuff.

So...the other night my mom called and said she wanted to see Sofia- so I dropped her off and I went to the gym. It was a great work out and I felt so awesome when I left. Sofia had kind of been a terror all day, so I was expecting that my mom would say the same when I called to check on her on my way home. So i called and my mom said- : oh i don't even know how to begin to tell you about this kid..." and I said..."why what happened..."

Apparently my mom told sofia to go into the living room, get into her toybox and take out her little boy and little pumpkin toy. So Sofia went trotting into the livning room. About thirty seconds later my mom heard nothing-complete silence - so she jumped up and ran into the lliving room (sofia+silence=trouble). No sofia. So her heaqrt skipped a beat and she ran to the stairway (we have had problems with sofia and the stairs before)....No sofia. So my mom yelled to her and -nothing. Then it dawned on her that she had left the dining room door open. She ran to the dining room and much to her surprise- sofia was in the small half bathroom. Apparently she had tried to get up on the potty, but because there was no little potty seat to catch her, she went rear first into the toilet bowl and was just sitting there hanging out- laughing. My mom had a fit! I laughed so hard! And then I found out last night that after they fished her out of the toilet bowl (which barely had any water left in it) they found the little boy toy hanging out at the bottom. Needless to say, I will be telling her this story when she gets older!

Now the big news.....SOFIA USED TO POTTY FOR REAL TONIGHT! No pressure or anything. I simply gave her an extra milk (her last four teeth are cutting through as we speak and she didn't really have much appetite to eat today) and when she finished we went up to get ready for bed. She brushed and then I got her undressed and put her on the potty and she just started to pee!!! Well, I cheered and clapped and yelled to Felipe's sister Marcela!!! Sofia smiled and then peed a little more...and we cheered and clapped together. I asked her if she had to go anymore and she tried to push more out!!! It was really really cute. Then I gave her the toilet paper to wipe and she did !!! (then she tried to wipe her nose with the same piece!!). Of couse we ended the evening by letting her flush and clapping some more! I was so excited. It's not that I expect her to use it all the time or again for a while...it's just that she caught me off guard totally!!! I had no idea that she was going to do it. i just thought it would be good practice.


Any way i have lots of new pics that I'll post soon. These pics are from one day when Sofia came to visit me at work. She loved the drumset!