Apparently, Sophie Is Not a Human...

This morning, Ian told Sophie that she was a human, and she replied, "No, Daddy, Sophie is not a human." When we asked her what she was then, she said, "Sophie!" So, apparently, Sophies are not humans...

Here are some pictures of Sophie at dinner at a local greasy spoon after seeing Bill Clinton speak the other night:

No, it's "apple-auce"

Sophie's linguistic skills (and attitude) continue to develop in a very independent-minded way. Recently, she's taken to correcting our language sometimes. The first time she really did it, I was trying to help her pronounce one of her favorite foods better. I said, "It's 'apple-sauce,' Sophie," thinking that she may have had problems with the two S-sounds of the word. Sophie responded immediately, "No, it's 'apple-auce.'" That's confidence.

Other lingustic landmarks include much better mimicry (she can repeat almost anything--which means we, i.e. I, have to be even more careful) and consistent identification of herself as "I" and her things as "my" and "mine." She still uses "Sophie" and "Sophie's," but she's definitely switching over to the first person.

I'm not sure if this is truly a linguistic achievement or not, but in response to the question, "What does Snoop Dogg say," Sophie will respond "chill" (in true Snoop Dogg style).

Messy Girl

Although Sophie is definitely starting to master the use of a spoon and fork, she sometimes doesn't quite make it to her mouth without mishap. This is what she looked like after a bowl full of chili. (I believe this was taken before Christmas, but she still ends up this messy after these kinds of meals.)


Also, Sophie has been quite the mimic lately and will say almost anything we ask her to (and some things we don't ask her to!). We've been really good about watching our language, and because of that, we've been saying "Oh, shoot" when we drop something, etc. Sophie has picked this up, but unfortunately since she doesn't pronounce everything quite right yet, it comes out as the phrase we've been trying to avoid!

Autumn Days

I'll start posting Thanksgiving pictures tomorrow, but I wanted to post some pictures we took a couple of weeks ago in our yard and at Millenium Park.

Sophie got in the habit of sitting on the front porch with Daddy while I was at my conference:

We took some pictures of Sophie next to our maple tree while it was in full color. I'm glad we did it before we left for Thanksgiving because when we returned it had lost all of its leaves!




Sophie has really been enjoying slides, both for her and toy-sized, lately. She even says the word, but she pronounces it something like "tasch." I'm not exactly sure why she says it this way, but she does! We took her to Millenium park a couple of weekends ago and let her play on the playground and look at the ducks. She babbled about the slide and ducks for the rest of the day!



Here she is looking down at the ducks:

Go Tar Heels! (Part 2)

Last night, Sophie stayed up long enough to watch part of Carolina's first game (against Davidson). She was excited to learn the phrases "Go Tar Heels!" and "Airball" (this last one in a sing-song voice).

I guess we have a basketball fan on our hands!

Happy...

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

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").

Quick Update

Sorry for the delays in getting updates posted. We're reaching the end of the first week of classes here at Centre, and it cannot come soon enough.

Sophie's walking really well now, and she seems to add new words with ease every day. A few I can think of off the top of my head include "heiß" (German for "hot") and both of the cats' names.

Here are a few fairly recent photos, too:

Talking Up a Storm

Ian and I decided to come up with a list of all of the words Sophie can say, and although some are said with more frequency than others and some are more intelligible than others, here is the list of 50+ words/phrases she can say!

no
milk
juice
happy
uh-oh
mama
dada
thank you
get down
up
hippo
duck
banana
apple
elbow
eyes
ears
diaper
belly button
F (fish)
whale
brush
purse
ball
bear
hi
walk
Bauch (belly in German)
auf (at/in/on in German, but she means out)
book
bath
arm
hello
bye bye
Licht (light in German)
grandma
grandpa
horse
turtle
this
balloon
off
home
wow
hooray
Baum (tree in German)

I recently read a short blurb about where toddlers should be at this stage, and it said that a 20-word vocabulary is advanced. I think we have a talker on our hands!

Blast from the Past I: Early July

Returning from Europe has been tougher than we expected--jetlag seems to be harder everytime we experience it (though worse on the trip back now than on the trip over--we've been managing that pretty well for the last few trips). We've also been planning for trips (to Baltimore and Washington, DC and to North Carolina) and catching up on work.

At any rate, we've been slow to update the blog. So here's a brief video of Sophie from the beginning of July. She's hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa Fine here, dancing and even walking a little!

You don't get a sense in the video, of course, of what has been going on with Sophie since we got back. We returned to find her walking much more, and she's now up to many steps at time (6-7 at least), though she still prefers to hold onto a hand while walking. Her active vocabulary is growing pretty fast now, too (just yesterday she said "hippo" and "elbow" for the first times, I think). Grandmas and Grandpas will be happy to know that she also mastered those words in early July. She's been adjusting to her new daycare situation slowly, but it gets a little easier every day. I think hanging out with a bunch of kids who walk has helped motivate her to walk more. And she's getting at least one molar now. It was pretty rough on the day it really broke through the gums, but she seems to be OK with it now. More updates and pictures soon, though it may not be until we get back from DC next Thursday.

P.S.: For anyone who hasn't heard, apologies, but we're officially spending the 2008-09 academic year in Strasbourg, France, where I'll be directing Centre's residential study abroad program and teaching a few courses. We're really excited about the experience and look forward to keeping the blog updated with Sophie's adventures in Europe! If you want to get an idea of where we'll be, visit Strasbourg's tourism site or the official site of the city. It really fits us well--it's in France, so Mindy and I can improve our French, but it's also on the Rhine river, right on the border with Germany, which is only a bicycle ride away. (If you visit the tourism site, click on the British flag to choose the English-language site, then click on "Discover." After being shown a map of where Strasbourg is located in Europe, you'll see a photo of the old city center [the Grande Ile] featuring the cathedral in the upper left. If you move toward the canal further to the left and then down a bit, you'll see a very long building right on the canal. Move back into the city one block, and you'll be looking at the street where we'll be living. The apartment is not in that first block but the one closer to the bottom of the photo.)

Right click here to save the video above.

Sophie's First Words

I just realized that I haven't posted anything recently on Sophie's repetoire of words. She's currently saying the following words:

• No
• Don't
• Dog
• Look (or guck' in German)
• Ball
• Hello (reserved for pretend phone calls; hallo in German)
• Hi
• Bye Bye
• Da Da
• Buch (book)
• Ma Ma

She seems to be learning more and more every week. For a couple of language people, it's really exciting to see her language skills develop!

Sophie's First Word in German

As many of you know, I try to speak German as much as possible with Sophie. Just how much depends on lots of things, but I would guess I do so between 50-75% of the time, which will hopefully be enough for her to pick it up. By now, she's supposed to have long mastered all the sounds of both of her native languages (even if she can't produce all of them yet due to a lack of teeth).

Well, last night she said her first legitimately only-German word (I'm not counting "mama," since it's also English). Last night after dinner, though, she was pointing at books to get me to read to her (which she loves). I said "Buch," the German word for "book," and she reproduced it twice, nailing the "ch" sound perfectly each time. An obviously delightful moment for her German and lit. prof. daddy!

Hi Dada and an Ode to Joy

Sophie's linguistic abilities have been improving drastically lately. While Grandpa and Grandma Wilson were here, she learned to "sing" from Grandpa Wilson. On Little Einsteins (a cartoon she watches every morning), they focus on a piece of classical music and a piece of art. While Grandpa and Grandma were here, it was "Ode to Joy." Grandpa was "singing" the song with "la la la," and Sophie tried to imitate him! So now, whenever we sing with "la la la," Sophie will do the same, although it doesn't really sound anything like any of the songs we're singing.

Another thing she's started recently is responding to Ian whenever he says, "Hi Sophie." She responds very clearly, "Hi dada." She won't respond to me at all, so we're pretty sure that she's associating "dada" in this case with Ian. (She says "dada" a lot, so it doesn't always mean "dada.")

Well, I'm hoping to post some more pictures soon--I just need to upload them from the camera!