April 1st, 2003

Margaret Atwood writes A letter to America. [link credit to Shasticon]

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So I officially gave up on Sophia’s word list a couple of weeks ago. I brought home a book called “Alphabatics” from the library. She has been increasingly interested in the letters of the alphabet. She would point to letters here and there and have us identify them for her. This book had the letters on each page, along with a picture forming itself out of the letter on the facing page (so A turned upside down into an ark, I sprouted wings and became an insect and M curved itself onto a pirate’s face and became a mustache) . She used this book to not only cement her knowledge of letters (she can consistently identify a letter about 2/3s of the time now) but also to learn the word for every item pictured across from the letters. Dragon, house, jack-in-the-box and even quail. That’s 26 new words she learned in a little under a week. I can’t keep up anymore and she’s not even two yet.

It’s been really exciting to watch her start to notice letters everywhere. She’ll point at signs and say “O! O!” or “S”. In the last couple of days she’s started saying “S is for Sophis” whenever she sees an S (because I keep telling her S is for Sophia). I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself, because I don’t think I’ve actually told about Sophis, yet. If I have, you’ll have to bear with me while I repeat myself. Before my parents left, Sophia was working on recognizing and naming people in pictures. When shown pictures of herself she would normally tell us “Baby!” which was correct but not what we were looking for. One day, when my mother was showing her a picture of herself playing with her cousin Abby that had been taken very recently (at Christmas) she named Abby and then named herself, calling herself “Sophis” (pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, like SoFEES). It’s so adorable the way she says it, that I sometimes call her that now. Now when she looks at recent pictures (taken in the last six months or so) or in the mirror or even when we’re going around the table naming everyone she can name herself as well. Sophis.

She’s developing very quickly and learning things at an astonishing rate. Every day she demonstrates a new physical or mental ability. She imitates everything we do and say.

Strangely enough, I’m still waiting for her to tell us she loves us. She demonstrates her affection in countless ways, toddlers are big on physical contact from what I understand. Our days are filled with hugs and kisses. Still, we tell her we love her all the time, and she has never said “I love you” back. Yet.

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The house is sold! Sold, I tell you!

I went to open a new bank account at a bank I (hopefully) won’t hate today, and I forget to get the check I was going to use to open the account signed by Kurt. Alas.

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