Sneaky Sofia!

This face is a normal, day-to-day Sofia face: filled with sneaky! Our little girl is quite the clever child.

A quick update while she's napping:

While no new "real" words are making their way out yet, her sounds are getting more sophisticated and, when prompted, she is working on saying such words as "Nonna" (her grandmother), the names of her daycare teachers Nadia and Jessica, "MeMa", "banana" and, yes, even "Mommy." Though, here is a conversation Sofia and I have had now on more than one occasion:

Me: "Sofia, can you say M-O-M-M-Y"?
Sofia: "Mmmm....PAPA'!"

Sure knows how to make a girl feel loved! Ha!

Her walking is really progressing - her little Frankenstein/chimpanzee style is getting very fast and no real toppling over is happening unless she's exhausted. Her latest obsessions are shoes and clothes in general (uh-oh...please tell me it's a phase, or she'll have to get a job soon!) practicing walking, sitting in her rocking chair by herself and 'reading' and, as always, her father!

We are still majorly fixated on sleep issues: it's just not happening yet. We had a meeting with her daycare teachers to get some advice and have put some of it into action already and are waiting to deal with the rest until after Thanksgiving.

Fingers ever crossed!

Oops!

Oops! Time sure has flown...my last post was in AUGUST??! Ah!

These past couple months have been rough - mainly because (I bet you can guess...) of sleep issues. Though - fingers crossed - things seem to be improving this week, since she's starting to give up her morning nap and have a nice, long nap in the afternoon. Night sleep is improving, hooray - and I never thought we'd get here! Let's hope it sticks now....

On all other fronts, Sofia's doing great. She started walking on October 6th and is getting stronger and faster daily - though, when in a rush, she does still rely on her ultra-fast crawling! She's still eating up a storm, too, especially at daycare where she takes seconds of pretty much everything. As is normal I believe for bilingual kids, her talking is taking a bit longer as she tries to sort out the confusion in her head! But her sounds have become more sophisticated, so I'm sure she'll be talking in no time. For now, she says "Papà," "Feh!" (Yiddish for "yuck"!) "Up" and has said "Mama" once. But you wouldn't believe how much she understands....

I will try my hardest to update more often, peeps, but I know you understand!

Happy Autumn!

Vacation?

Been here in the ol' U.S. of A. for nearly a month and it's been hard going. I wouldn't quite call it a "vacation", as that would be defined as "vacating" from your actual life to re-group and re-charge. Let's call it an..."exhaustation"? Meaning, with nearly no full night's sleep and Sofia 24/7, Andrea and I took shifts to keep ourselves sane and survive. So, yeah. Vacation will come when she's older and either we can ship her off for a few days to summer camp, or she's old enough to color on her own and won't need such full attention all the time. Not quite yet.

Anyway, we did lots of stuff while here, however. Visited NYC, even stayed overnight (Sofia loved it). Went down to Florida for a family reunion (Sofia loved it). Went up to the Catskills to visit the theater (Sofia loved it). Went to the Turtle Back Zoo (Sofia loved it). Ate a lot, played a lot, ran under the rain (Loved, loved, loved it). If she has any sort of long-term memory yet, she will look back on this month fondly. Which was, of course, our goal =)

Happy End of Summer!

1 year!

(unhappy at being oversqueezed but about to dig in to her delicious millefoglie cake)

So, we made it! To quote my friend Nic, "One down, the rest of our lives to go!"

Sofia had her first birthday on Friday, and it was a lovely day. They had a little party for her at daycare (apparently she loved being the center of attention), then we had a family lunch at a great restaurant in the park. She got some fun gifts (including a new pair of sunglasses from moi -- in the hopes that she'd stop grabbing everyone else's glasses now that she has her own - good idea, in theory) and the day was memorable, for her parents at least, even if she won't remember a second of it!

Then we left for the terme (spa) with Mema and Pop Pop, where things were nice but a bit tougher. Seems that as soon as Sofia realized she had turned 1, she decided she wanted her independence, so now she's fighting us on fun things like changing her or feeding her, putting her in the car, that sort of daily, unavoidable event. *sigh* More experienced parents listen to our tales of woe and smile knowingly. I have a feeling this is the beginning of the end.

Anyway, reflecting on the fact that 1 whole year has passed since the birth of Sofia, I mainly feel relief. It's been a rough year. From her birth week in the hospital being induced, to the C-section to all our nursing problems and mastitis and then pumping for 10 months, then her not sleeping...when I think back on it, it's nothing short of a miracle that (a) I'm still halfway sane and (b) that Andrea and I never even uttered the word "divorce"!!

But, seriously, for all the pain of the past year, the joy has been threefold. Sofia is a strong, smart, healthy, funny, loving creature who makes us belly laugh daily. She reminds me of the fundamentals of life: to love and be loved, to find joy in the small things, to appreciate the details. That look of amazement on her face is inspiring and I thank her for it. So, yeah, she keeps us on our toes and there are times, often over this past year, that we've despaired, thought there was no way we could find the energy to complete another day. But then she does something, learns something. Like today for example. Probably due to some more teething, I was up with her from 4 to 6 am and was practically crying as I put my shoes on for work. And then, I walked her down to the car and as I gave her my usual "See you later, Sofia" and a kiss on the cheek, she raised her tiny little hand, smiled and waved goodbye. And, right then, for the millionth time in the past 365 days, my heart did a little dance and I thanked the universe for making her just the way she is.

Happy 1st birthday, Peanut (a.k.a. Princess Poopie, Poopie Goldberg, Poopy or Mirtillino)!

p.s. Can't forget a shout-out to Sofia's baby Daddy! Andrea - THANK YOU, for everything, and that includes not throwing me off the balcony, even when I may have asked you to. =) Ti amo, grazie di essere mio compagno di avventura, sempre e nonostante.

Moving along...

I really can't believe we're almost at the 12 month mark.... Little Peanut is a handful! But she's also more fun, more interactive and cuter every day. She loves to laugh, to eat, to pull herself up and "cruise" along the couch. She also loves to test her limits (and laughs at our "No!"..uh-oh...!), eat paper and grass and be with her Papa'. Yup, she's a Daddy's girl alright!

Soon I'll be writing a "She's 1!" post, that sort of freaks me out! But for now I'm not going to think about that, and just enjoy being with her, and continue to rest while she rests because our Sofia is definitely an energy vacuum!

Time, flying.

Here she is in her first "Oh crap, she doesn't look like a tiny newborn anymore!" picture. She has her first 2 teeth!!, sits up like a pro, soooorta crawls (military style, and she's quick!), eats a ton (of solids, in daycare...home, not so much yet), dances, gives me little wet kisses, says "mammammammmaa" a lot (not quite aimed at me yet though), gets excited at the sound of her papa' coming through the door and has her very own (stubborn) opinions. Our baby's getting big!

Negatives of course, too: she had her first flu, then her first cold (which she's still getting over). We had to give her, ehem, her first, ehem, assistance to help her poop. She's been sleeping HORRIBLY for almost 2 months now...first the first tooth, then the flu, then the other tooth, then the cold and in between there was separation anxiety and, now, a stuffy nose that hasn't quite gone away yet. Right now she's having a mega (MEGA...three hours and still going!) nap, so I guess she needed it too.

Luckily, I also napped for 2 and a half of those 3 hours, so I'm good to go for the moment too, which is heaven-sent considering I spent most of yesterday wondering if my life would ever go back to some semblance of 'normal' and (namely) if I would ever sleep again. The world has a wonderful way of bringing you to rock bottom and then treating you for not having given up, so right now it is BEAUtiful outside and sunny. I'm enjoying the quiet of 2/3 of the family still napping, cooking up some salmon to go over our pasta for lunch and just generally thanking the universe for not having, in fact, given up on moi.

Thank you, universe! And thank you Sofia for being so awesome. I always say, if she'd only sleep, she'd be PERFECT!!

The Leap: Daycare

First Sofia-related leap of faith: first day of daycare yesterday. Today, as I write this, we are letting her stay there an hour by herself for naptime...just to test the waters.

I miss her already, and I feel a weird mix of sadness and guilt I'm not familiar with. How will we ever know if we're traumatizing her or making her happier/stronger? With giving her independence comes a whole lot of self doubt. One thing is certain though: Sofia is strong, and she is going to be ok. Andrea and I, though, are another story!

Family!