When It Rains, It Pours

Sophie's eyes are doing much better today...a little puffy and red, but on the mend. Her cold has taken a little turn for the worse, but it's still just congestion and a cough--treatable by over-the-counter cold medicine (which must now be bought with proof of ID at the pharmacy counter just in case we are really covering for a meth lab that uses tiny drops of infant medicine!). But...yesterday Sophie took a little bit of a tumble while at the playground, and although it's rather superficial, she looks like she was in a bar fight or a car accident! This poor little girl needs the weekend to come more than her mommy and daddy do!

On a funnier note, last weekend it was cool enough one day to wear long-sleeved shirts, so I put her in her new shirt that Grandma Ethel bought her on their last visit. I had to run to the bank, only 5 minutes away, so I packed Sophie up in her carseat, and by the time we returned she had done this (and I'm still not sure how, considering she was strapped in at the time!):

Home Sick Today

Sophie came home from daycare yesterday with pink eye! Luckily, we still have some medicine leftover from her last bout with it, so we started it on her last night. She still had to stay home "sick" today, though, because she's contagious for 24 hours after starting her medicine. She has a little bit of a cold, so the rest will do her good.

Here's a family picture we took yesterday morning (to be included in the church directory):

New Favorite Jammies

Sophie has really been into dragons and dinosaurs lately, mostly due to the fact that one of her favorite movies, Shrek, has a dragon chase scene in it. (She also likes chase scenes!) A couple of weeks ago, I found some dinosaur pajamas for her and bought them, and it's been cold enough at night for her to wear them the last few nights. She gets really excited to put them on. These pictures also have her sticker from when she got her shots last week. The sticker stayed on for two days!

Passport-check! Mommy's Brain...Nowhere to be found!

So, we finally made it to the post office this morning with all of the required documents, photos, and people in tow. Ian, Sophie and I all had to be there for Sophie's passport. Last night, I thought I had lost her birth certificate, SS card, and our marriage certificate, but I drove to campus at 10:00pm and found that they had fallen behind my desk. Phew!

We completed all the paperwork and sent the passport application in (along with her birth certificate, which is required) only to realize in the parking lot that we'll be flying with her in about three weeks, and her only form of ID is her birth certificate at the moment! Aggghhh! No problem, I think to myself, in California, all you have to do is show up at the county clerk's office in the county you were born in and they'll print you off a copy in about five minutes. Not so in Kentucky. You have to order them online or by phone, and for $10 you can get it in 30 days. The only other option is the super-rush option which costs $45.50! I asked the lady if there was any other way to get it faster without paying so much, and after first answering "no," proceeded to tell me that I could drive to Frankfort (about an hour away) and request it in person, which takes about an hour and only costs $10. Hmmmm...I think I'll be taking a half-day personal day to make a trip to Frankfort. I just can't bring myself to pay $45 for an extra copy of her birth certificate.

Well, on the bright side, here's some adorable pictures of Sophie on the swing. My mom took these while she was here and says that she's holding onto the swing like a big girl because she saw some older kids doing it!

Sophie's (Mis)Adventures

We've had some adventures lately that haven't turned out like we planned. This weekend, we decided to take Sophie to Explorium, a children's museum in Lexington. Grandma and Grandpa Fine took her there while we were in Austria, and she seemed to like it so much that we thought we'd take her. We drove the hour it took to get there, and lo and behold, it was closed for a week for the installation of a new exhibit! So, instead of posting the fun she had this weekend, here's a picture from when she went in July:

We are also working on getting Sophie's passport since we'll have to start working on our visa applications soon. We got her picture taken a couple of weeks ago, but we found out that her head is too small in the picture! We went and had another one taken this morning, so keep your fingers crossed that the new one is okay! Here's a copy of the first picture:

Happy...

Sophie often says "happy" when she's content. Here's one of her happy faces:

15-Month Doctor Appointment

Yesterday was Sophie's 15-month appointment. We thought she'd be getting shots, but they didn't want to give them to her yet because she's had hives for the past 5 days--no other symptoms, just hives. They're reluctant to rule it as a food allergy and think it might just be viral. If it is viral, it should pass in a couple of weeks. We have another appointment next week to either get her shots or discuss her hives in more detail. We'll see.

We have new measurements:

Weight: 24 lb. 2 oz.
Height: 30.75 inches (Although this may be wrong since they measured her at 32 inches at her 12-month appointment...she definitely hasn't shrunk since then!)
Head Circumference: 47 cm

It seems as if she's slowed down a little in her growth (thank goodness!). Her weight and height put her in the 50th-75th percentile and her head puts her in the 75th-90th percentile.

A Strange Sense of Fashion

Ian mentioned that Sophie wanted to wear her Chucks with her pajamas the other morning. She also wanted to wear her bib to round out the outfit. Little did he know that I caught the little fashion diva on camera. (New word: Shrek)

Grandpa Wilson's August Photos I

Here are a few photos Sophie's grandpa Wilson took during a recent visit. I'll post more tomorrow. New word: "breakfast."

This is something Sophie likes to do with her bibs after she is done eating. She removes a bib from around her neck, but then hold it under her chin like this. She hasn't mastered putting bibs back on, and this is how she achieves the same effect:


You can always tell that Sophie is smiling by her eyes:

A Few More Pictures

So we made it to the end of the week--phew. Sophie's been having a great time in general, though she's had a mightily nasty diaper rash for a few days and then some hives today. Grandma Fine expects Sophie may be looking at a lifelong battle with allergies, something she comes by naturally from both sides of her family.

She really enjoys her daycare now, and we've noticed lots of little things she can do that she must have learned there. It began, of course, with walking better, which we think must have been helped by seeing all of the other kids in her room walking around. But she also colors well, which means she has some pretty good motor skills, she sings a little, and she dances, too. So we're pretty pleased with the learning side of the place, and Sophie likes it, too.

Last weekend Sophie's grandpa and grandma Wilson came to visit. Sophie got some new clothes, including a new winter hat. She insisted on wearing it around for about 15 minutes that evening. This morning, she brought her black hightop Chuck Taylors to us so she could wear them around with her pajamas. It was pretty funny.

The second picture shows her doing one of her favorite things: looking through her transparent plates after (well, usually after) she's eaten all the food on them.




I thought of a few more words she's been saying lately: "basketball," "Eidechse" ("lizard," one of her favorite animals, in German), and "Auto" (German for "car").