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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

What's new with Miss Sophie Lu? She is wonderful. A textbook "easy child". And thank God! Coming on the heels of her born-to-be-wild sister Isabelle, I can see God's great mercy in sending us sweet Sophie :) But this does not mean she never makes any kind of mischief, because she does. She just does it in an 'easy' way. For example, Isabelle misbehaving would be: lying on the floor at the doctor's office, screaming because I won't allow her to throw all the magazines on the floor and scale the magazine rack. In contrast, Sophie misbehaving is trying to convince me that Isabelle's full juice cup is indeed her cup, when hers goes missing. Big difference ;)

Sophie turned three on January 20. In celebration of her big day we met her cousins, aunt and grandmother at a local children’s museum. We chose this for her special day because they were featuring a Chinese astrology exhibit in their planetarium. Thankfully the kids loved the playing part because we could barely keep them still in the planetarium for the show. Seems she doesn’t quite have an appreciation for her Chinese heritage yet ;) After the museum we headed to the Chinese buffet for Sophie to enjoy one of her favorites: Chinese noodles. Seems mama can’t quite make them the same way at home! At home we celebrated with all the typical birthday goodies: balloons, cake, ice cream and presents. This year’s chosen theme was Strawberry Shortcake. Sophie had a bit of a time deciding between that and My Little Pony, but eventually Strawberry Shortcake won out. For her big day she received an adorable playhouse, baby doll bed, Bratz pony and some frou-frou dress up shoes. She thoroughly enjoyed all the special attention and we were all grateful to be able to finally celebrate a birthday with her, her first one since becoming a member of our family.

She has been home 10 months now and continues to amaze us with her abilities to learn new things. She completed potty training school in less than two weeks (after getting off to a bumpy start!); she rarely has an accident and doesn’t even need a diaper at night. I wish my other kids had been trained at such a young age! She loves to ask questions, in fact, she just loves to talk. I honestly wondered if I still had ears on my head the other day, I was convinced she'd talked them clean off. She loves to keep me informed of any misdoing in the household and oftentimes I am very grateful for the heads up. Her sentences are usually 4-5 words now and we are encouraging her to use entire sentences to ask for things instead of just "more juice" etc. We're working on manners also and she almost always begins or ends most sentences with "please" or "thank you". Her newest response to me when I ask her to do something is “Sure!” The other day she said her longest, most grammatically correct sentence ever when we were going out for a walk. I had the camera over my shoulder while I was putting the girls' shoes on and the dog was so excited to go along she was jumping up on me. Sophie, our resident rule maker, said "No Velvet, don't touch mama's camera!" Such a big girl!

Sophie has mastered her tricycle and is working on her scooter skills. She loves to do just about anything outside and we are all celebrating the arrival of warm weather here! Her ability to run has greatly improved, much smoother and more coordinated than when she came home. I doubt they encouraged running of any kind at the orphanage! She can now jump well, stand on one foot and has just learned how to ‘gallop’. She knows almost all her colors, only occasionally mixing up red and green. She loves pink now and if given the choice, every cup, article of clothing and toy given to her would be pink. Orange is her next, but distant, favorite.

Sophie is an amazing big sister

"Strawberry Shortcake rocks!"

Can never have too many sprinkles

Making s'mores in the backyard

Sophie is a girly girl :)

"I can ride and smile at the same time"

She loves to count things and does so well, "one, two, three, four, nine, six, seven, eight..." She is so proud of herself; it is difficult to correct her. She loves doing puzzles, lacing toys, stringing beads, and loves to color. When she finishes a picture she makes sure I hang her masterpiece somewhere and then constantly refers to it as "Sophie's!" In fact she labels many things as "Sophie's". The girls now wear the same size shoe so often I will buy a pair of shoes in two colors and Sophie has to be sure which one is hers (of course, the pink!) and then notifies everyone in the household. Fortunately Isabelle couldn't care less about whose is whose so Sophie can pretty much lay claim to anything she chooses. We are working on the concept of sharing, and Sophie shares beautifully much of the time, especially with Isabelle. Her sweet nature is sure to give way to less possessiveness as she learns she will always have enough.

Sophie still loves to be on the go. Since Isabelle has three therapy sessions a week (along with countless other appointments for every one else!), Sophie gets her wish of lots of time spent ‘going’. Unfortunately, Sophie doesn’t get to participate in Isabelle’s sessions, but the consolation prize is lots of ‘mama time’ when Belle is in a session ;) Also, Isabelle’s speech is located at an office that offers hippo-therapy so there is a barn there stocked with horses, chickens and rabbits. Sophie loves to spend time naming the animals and trying to entice the horses over to the fence with offers of grass. She recently figured out that rabbits like to eat grass too and she had a wonderful time trying to put blades of grass through the wire on the rabbit cage. Quite a far cry from the little girl who was terrified of our little Jack Russell!

Sophie continues to grow, but she is slowing up a bit. She now weighs 32 pounds (60%) and is 37 inches (40%). She wears 3T clothes and an 8 shoe. She isn’t quite as ravenous as she was before, eating less at mealtimes. But she loves to snack! I think she would eat every hour on the hour if given the chance. Her favorite snacks are granola bars, fruit snacks, popcorn, and any kind of lunch meat. At mealtimes she still chooses any kind of meat over carbohydrates, except rice or noodles. She is becoming more adventurous with her choices of fruits and veggies. Her current picks are banana, apple, peas, beans, mandarin oranges and salad. Her favorite place for lunch on the go is, as you might have guessed, McDonald’s. I am not sure if it’s because of the food or the play place because the only food she will eat there is French fries. We were there the other day (surprise) and I pointed out a tiny fry and referred to it as a “baby” fry. She then named a fry in honor of each member of our family, in ascending order. It seems that she is enjoying being a member of this family as much as we are enjoying her!

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