Two Years

On April 29th, we celebrated Sonia's two years with us.  We had a little family gathering along with some friends.  The rose buds opened, the sun came out and Sunny had a grand time.  I think the highlight for her was when we all gathered round and sang "Happy Birthday."  It was a little like a wish come true for her because she has been discussing her birthday with us all for the past month.  She has a Dora book about Dora's birthday and would exclaim, "Sonia!" when the picture of Dora at her party came up.  We've been practicing blowing out candles.  She has been whipping up birthday cakes out of sand and soap suds and ticking off the names of her birthday party guests.  That morning she ate her fill (nearly a whole jar) of olives and happily danced around talking to all of her guests.

Then, everyone started singing.

As I mentioned, cake has been on her mind so she was very excited to get some.  Almost could not wait, as you see from the photo below.  When it came down to it, though, she seemed to prefer Poggy's ice cream and had seconds of that.  Then we sat down and watched Sonia open and play with her gifts.  She did pretty good with baby Milan- covering him with her silky and showing just a slight hesitation before sharing her ball toy with him.  Pretty good judgement considering he weighs as much as she does!

 

I still have to get the photos from Sonia's official photographer, Ian, so I will try to post some of those when I do as he always gets some amazing shots.

Sunny is telling us what she thinks about everything.  "No! Sonia! Self!" is one of her favorite proclamations.  She is very intent on putting on clothes right now even though she still has a lot to learn about that skill.  Most of the time I hear, "No! Sonia! Self!" then ten seconds later, "No! Mom!" as both her feet are sticking out of one pant leg.  She has also started to notice clothing and declares certain items pretty.  That is not to suggest she spends all of her time ordering us around.  Sometimes there are glimpses into just how much she understands but cannot yet articulate.  We have been reading a book called "Opposites" that she got for Chrisamas from our friends Lesley and John.  One page has a jack-in-box that is in then out.  She never seems particularly interested in that page and usually skips ahead to the page with puppies and chicks, but I read it anyway when it comes up.  Yesterday, she was playing with her new barn and farm animals.  To my amazement, she put the cow into the barn and said, "Cow in."  Guess she was paying attention!

Holidays

Happy new year everybody!  Sonia truly enjoyed Christmas this year, though she could only focus on opening presents for the first three or four, then she was off to other endevours.  Not such a bad thing, I think.  She did learn to recognize Santa Claus-first as a stuffed toy then as a two story inflated figure in the old town area of Albuquerque.  Every time one of these came into view, we would hear a little, "ho...ho...ho".  This was easily mistaken for, "oooo....oooo....oooo" (the sound an owl makes) or "oooowwww" (the sound a wolf makes), so Sunny sometimes had to set us straight.  We tried to go visit the real guy at the mall, but neither of us thought the line was worth it and we just waved from afar.  When things do not go as planned, Sunny takes  a lot of comfort in her silky, the brown blanket she is gnawing on below.  If something drops or spills, she says, "Uh Oh!" and grabs her silky.  She pretty much wants it whenever there is something troubling occurring like Ezra howling, her foot slipping, or hunger pains starting as well as when she is playing so she can cover up her dolls and animals.  Yes, it is in her hand most of the time.

Here are some pictures from Christmas Day with the Masons.  In the last picture, Jeff is looking at Sonia and Sonia is concentrating on a Barak Obama doll on the chair.  Tammy had gotten the doll (complete with a "Yes we can" soundtrack) for Ian as a gag gift and Sunny could not get enough of it.  Alan and I had to open her presents because she was so enamored with Obama she refused to even look in our direction.  Tammy has kindly sacrificed her living room for the jungle gym Jeff made Sonia.  She loves it and is already starting to hang and pull herself up.  Uh oh!

We made an unplanned trip up to Trinidad for New Years.  As usual, Sunny loved all the dogs and the llamas.  She desperately wanted to pet the cat as well, but he was in no such mood.  Sunny kept looking for him, pointing to locations of his past whereabouts and saying, "meow."  Grandma Sandy asked if Sunny could call her Mimi.  Sure, we said, and a minute later Sunny was saying, "Mimimimi."  Good choice, Sandy!  Uncle Matt, his girlfriend (who made Sunny the hat she is in below) and her kids all came down so Sunny got to watch some big kids sled on a toboggan.  She even did a little sledding herself on a saucer sled.