The Green Fig Tree

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Sophia Renée is two (plus some)

Sophia turned two years old at the end of May, but things have been a little busy around here so I have not had time to update the blog.  She is no longer a helpless infant, and has turned into a little person with her own mind, ideas about things, and plans of action.

She talks all the time, and there are a few quirks about her language that are uniquely her.  She uses possessive and plural correctly, most of the time, though when the rule isn’t to add “s” she gets confused.  For example, she will say “it’s mine’s.”  She loves to talk on the phone, and has been known to call people on my cell phone without my knowledge.  She is allowed to look at pictures or play games on the phone, so it is not unusual to see her holding it, but every now and then she will mention “call Grammie,” and when we check she has been talking for a few minutes.  Luckily it is usually Grammie who gets called, and she doesn’t mind too much.

Other “Phiaisms” are:
“hold this” – when she does not want to have to pay attention to her snack, but doesn’t want the dog to get it
“charge batteries” – when her iPod isn’t working, or any other electronic device isn’t on or she has been told she cannot use it
“broken” – attached to the end of whatever she has been told she cannot do (I was told “mama broken” a few weeks ago when I responded negatively toward a “hold this” demand)
“mama/daddy fix it” – when she notices something isn’t right/actually is broken
“I jump in” – every time she sees/hears/thinks about the swimming pool
“no ice” – when offered ice in her glass, usually after saying yes twice, then realizing she does not, in fact, wish to have ice; generally spoken in a wail
“go Target” – when she realizes we don’t have at home something she wants

She loves to give directions while driving, to the point that she cries if we turn the wrong direction.  We have had to issue a moratorium on directions from her in the car, else we are constantly hearing “this way” from the backseat, followed by a wailing of “this way” (and pointing) or “left, left, left” or “right, right, right” depending on which direction she thought we should go, but did not.

She is a great helper, especially when I am cooking.  Her favorite spice is cinnamon, and we have caught her standing on a chair in the pantry a number of times, covered in cinnamon.  When she sees me beginning to make dinner or bake, she drags the kitchen chair over to “her spot,” climbs up and sticks her hands right into whatever I am doing.  She also likes to help “clean up” if there is a mess, and she will go grab a tissue from the box and wipe the floor or table.  Unfortunately this desire rarely extends to picking up her toys.

Her favorite food, cheese, has not waned.  However, she has also developed a love of fruit.  She could eat a pound of green grapes in one sitting if allowed, and she also loves blueberries, blackberries, kiwi, apples, oranges and bananas.  She still doesn’t like meat very much, other than breaded chicken nuggets, and to Andy’s eternal dismay, beef jerky.  She likes pasta depending on the sauce, various breads and crackers, and desserts sometimes.  She is partial to ice cream and anything with icing, though only wants the icing and not the cake or cookie.  She does like vegetables, usually cooked carrots, peas, zucchini, green beans sometimes, and cold celery, cucumber, and tomatoes.  She loves to eat, but usually she is begging for something healthy.  She also does a good job stopping when she is full, or has had enough, and is the only child I have seen who puts down a dessert halfway through.  The exception to this rule is gummy candy, her favorite.  Her favorite drink is still, of course, sweet tea.

She loves to watch movies and tv, though we recently canceled our satellite for an antenna, so we watch less actual tv than we have before.  Her favorite movie lately is Toy Story 2, though the old favorites of Mama Mia, The Wizard of OZ, Hairspray, and Enchanted still get adequate playing time.  She also likes to watch VeggieTales videos.  Her favorite tv shows are still The Wonder Pets and Yo Gabba Gabba, which she generally watches on her iPod touch.  She knows the names of some of the characters in each movie, but has taken to calling the rest of the characters by the title of the film itself.  For example, she knows Woody, Jesse, Bullseye, Dinosaur, Buzz from the Toy Story movie, but then calls the rest of the characters “Toy Story.”  As in, “oh no, Toy Story fall down.”

Sophia loves music, and it is never loud enough.  She is constantly asking for us to “tee up” (turn it up), and can tell when we haven’t.  She also likes to dance, and has some awesome booty-shaking moves.

Sophia also loves to read, and her favorite books these days are Biscuit, The Hungry Caterpillar, No No, Yes Yes, and Barnyard Dance.  She recently got a LeapFrog Tag and likes to read a Toy Story book with that.

Sophia still takes a 2 – 3 hour nap every afternoon, but since her birthday has been in a “big girl” bed.  We moved my old full-size bed frame and mattress in, and her old toddler bed/crib out.  We also painted the room a rich lavender, and added some “big girl” art.  She has a hand-pulled Dr. Seuss serigraph, which we purchased when we were in California in January.  She still sleeps with a pacifier, and generally has to have an extra one in her hand as well.  We are planning on taking them away and sending them to a baby who might need them (she generally suggests “baby Cyers,” her friend Bella’s younger brother), but we want to wait until she is through transitioning to her new school in August.  Not that she sleeps with a pacifier at school now, but it would be one less thing to cause drama for her.

Sophia is also a big girl in another way:  she is about 95% potty trained!  Following the path of our friends the Lehmans, who have a little girl a month older than Sophia, we started introducing her to going on the potty at around Christmas time.  We were not very consistent, and we did not get upset when she had accidents, but we made sure she sat on it before naptime, bathtime, bedtime, and other various times during the day.  We also had her spend a lot of time in just thin, cotton panties.  We discovered that the pull-ups are too thick for her to realize she had an accident, and the same was happening when we tried the “training panties” that Gerber makes.  Sophia was followed around constantly, so if she had an accident we could tell her, then take her straight to the bathroom.  She actually did really well when we were out in public, because we took her as soon as we got somewhere, and then again before we left.  She loves seeing different bathrooms, and has to say “hi drain” every time she sees a drain in a public bathroom.  At the very beginning of May, the light switched on and she started going into the bathroom and climbing onto the toilet on her own.  Now she will go days with minimal accidents (unless she wants out of the stroller or shopping cart), or none at all.  We have recently decided to try and potty train her completely, so she does not use a pull-up or diaper even when sleeping.  Most of the time she wakes up with a dry diaper, so we think she is capable.  We have bought some pads to go over her sheets, for easy removal in case of an accident, and will give it a try.

I am so thankful that God has tasked us with raising this beautiful little girl.  As she grows up and we try to teach her about life and what it means to be His child, it is blatantly apparent that she was given to us so that Andy and I can grow more in our relationship with Him and learn the things that we had yet to understand.  I imagine that He spends a lot of time chuckling as we try to teach Sophia something that He has been attempting to get through our own heads.

Well, here is the reason you read all my typing, the latest pictures:

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Rodeo Day

Yesterday was Rodeo Day at Sophia’s school.  Here are some pics:

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Austin, Here We Come!

Last weekend, Sophia and I took a trip to Austin to visit our friend Erica Green.  It was mine and Sophia’s first trip together without Andy, and we had a good time.  We drove down Sunday afternoon, and stopped at Dairy Queen just North of Waco for lunch and ice cream.  Sophia helped give their basset hound, Flash, a bath, and then decided she needed to go for a swim in the kiddie pool he was bathed in.  Then she got upset that Flash had to stay inside to dry off.  She LOVED Flash.  We had delicious eggplant and zucchini lasagna rolls for dinner, and then Sophia went to bed.  She wasn’t too keen on the fact that I wasn’t going to bed with her and informed me “Mama, NAP” while pointing at the bed.  I told her I had to go potty and I would be right back, and that seemed to calm her down and she let me leave until Erica and I had chatted into the night.  The next morning we leisurely had breakfast, packed up and then went to the botanical gardens at Zilker Park.  Sophia loved looking at all the plants, though she thought it was fun to run away toward the parking lot when it was in view.  Erica chased after her and carried her back to the path.  Erica is going to be a great mama one day!  After the park we all met up with another friend, Kelly Morris, who lives in Austin, for lunch at Kirbey Lane.  I was introduced to the deliciousness of Kirbey Queso, and Sophia got a giant grilled cheese sandwich.  After lunch we drove back home, and Sophia slept the entire three hour trip!  We will definitely have to do this again, because we had a great time.  Here are some pictures:

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Vegetable Garden Update

So the vegetable garden has so far been surprisingly successful.  I have had “baby” lettuces to make salads out of for about two weeks, as well as “baby” spinach.  Today I noticed bean pods coming out on my green bean plants.  I am super excited.

We did have a few setbacks last week, including the discovery of caterpillars in my mint, which I was able to eradicate with the use of the spray nozzle on the hose on high, plus an organic insecticide spray called Spinosad.  The caterpillars in the mint are gone, but there is still a bit of evidence of caterpillars in my other plants.  However, I am honestly not sure if the evidence (the hole that have been eaten in the leaves) is growing larger in my imagination as the plant grows larger, or if there are still caterpillars eating the plants.  The damage, nonetheless, is miniscule compared to what I found in the mint (and what it could be), and I have yet to find a completely obliterated plant, so something is working.

Another setback was the discovery (though not so surprising) of aphids among my plants as I was laying down natural cedar mulch once the plants had gotten large enough that I did not worry they would be crushed by the mulch and never reach the surface.  However, this was a quick (and fun) fix, because I was able to simply purchase some lady bugs at the local garden store and release them into the garden.  The package held 1500, and promised that after eating their fill of aphids, they would lay eggs on my leaves and those that hatch would then continue the cycle.  Sophia loved helping put the lady bugs on the plants, and even decided to taste one.  She was not pleased that it moved around on her tongue on its own, and quickly removed it from her mouth.  I had read that once the lady bugs eat all the aphids they will quickly move on, so after releasing them Friday evening, I was rather shocked to go out this morning and see hundreds of lady bugs on our plants.  I am thinking that though they enjoyed the wonderful shower God sent down, they must not like to fly in it, and have set up a temporary home in my garden (which is okay by me!).

Finally, we had a setback with regard to my attempt to plant tomatoes, peppers and broccoli inside, as well as the cucumbers and eggplant  I planted outside.  After a few weeks the seedlings inside simply stopped growing, and many withered to nothing in a matter of hours.  Those that were left I attempted to harden-off outside, and then plant into the ground, but after a few days, those too disappeared back into the soil.  I decided to simply buy some transplants from the local organic garden store, and will be looking for a company for next year that sells organic transplants via mail order.  Of the cucumbers I planted outside, only one has actually survived.  Three weeks after I planted them we had a late freeze and snow, and it effectively killed all but one of my fragile cucumbers.  I replaced those, too, with transplants from the organic garden store, but will definitely be attempting to plant seeds again next year since one did make it.  The eggplant has simply failed to materialize at all, and I am not sure if I had a batch of bad seeds, but the plan is to do some research and see if I could possibly plant another round this late in the spring or wait until fall for a fall/winter harvest.  Luckily, we don’t eat tons of eggplant like we do other things.

Here are the pictures, first taken April 6, after the first good rain of the season, and then taken this afternoon, April 19, after two days of solid drizzle..

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Vegetable Garden

So last year I set out with a plan to create a large vegetable garden in our backyard, with four raised boxes that were 8 ft x 4 ft.  We bought all the wood, and I even bought seeds to plant from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds.  However, the project got started too late (end of April) and required too much work in too short a period of time, and it was just too much altogether for us to get done.  This year, especially after reading books like In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, and seeing the Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc., I was really motivated to do something about creating a vegetable garden in our yard.  Andy and I discussed it, and it was decided that we would scale down the project to two 8 ft x 4 ft boxes, plus various stand-alone pots for things like mint that might take over the garden.

I called the seed company and they told me that most of the seeds I had purchases last year, due to keeping them in the house (cool and dry), should be useable, and I purchased a few more seeds to plant things I have used in cooking this year that I had never used at this time last year (like eggplant and zucchini).  So, two weeks ago I went to Green Mama’s Organic Gardening Center and learned about what I needed to do to make my nasty clay soil productive, and purchased a lot of compost, lava sand and organic fertilizers, as well as some herb plants that are more difficult to grow from seeds.  I started planting indoors (with Sophia’s help, of course) tomatoes, some herbs, jalapenos and bell peppers.  Last weekend Andy built the boxes to go into the yard, and we worked together to till up the clay soil, add all the Green Mama purchases and mix it together well.

Finally, today, we were able to start planting outside in the boxes.  My dad came and helped, which made it go real fast.  We tied off the boxes into 1 ft x 1 ft sections, to keep everything organized (sort-of like square-foot gardening, but not as strict), and started planting.  The list includes green beans, eggplant, cucumber, zucchini, onions, romaine lettuce, spinach, a gourmet lettuce mix, carrots, as well as the herb plants that were bought.  The tomatoes and basil and other plants that were started indoors will go out in two or three weeks, once they have reached the proper height, and I still have sugar snap peas to plant, which can’t go into the ground for a few weeks.  However, I am super excited that this grand scheme is finally coming to be a reality.  It is so thrilling to see the tiny basil leaves poking up, or the teeny stem that will eventually become a tomato plant.  I have posted pics of the journey, and I will post more pics as things start to grow.

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Craigslist Backyard Playset

So, last weekend Andy and I were attempting to work outside in the backyard to get the boxes built for our vegetable garden, and we realized that Sophia is now too old to be stuck into the pack-n-play with a toy or two to occupy her while we do things.  In fact, not only does she not sit still for very long, but she wants to help.  The plan is to build her her own box to put dirt in that she can “plant” things and “garden” while I do my stuff, but that was not at the top of the priority list when we were getting our stuff together so we can plant this weekend.  We attempted to give Sophia a paintbrush and a bucket of water for her to “paint” the fence, which was fun for a while, but then she was back to helping us or messing with things on the patio.  We realized Sophia needs something to play with in the backyard.  We started looking at small playground-style swingsets and climbers with slides, but even the small ones were hundreds of dollars.  We scaled down and started looking into simple plastic slides, and thought maybe we would get a slide with some other things, like a big-wheel tricycle or something, but the slides were almost $100 and the tricycles were at least $40.  Andy got the idea to look on Craigslist, and we found an awesome smallish climber with slide from someone in our city for only $150.  When we went to look at it, the guy told us that they had only had it a year, and were getting rid of it because they were upgrading to something larger.  It looked in great shape.  We decided it was going to be an early birthday present, and Friday after Andy got home, he put it together and Sophia tried it out.  She is so thrilled, and now all she wants to do is play outside.  She is so grown up!  Check out the pics, some from Friday, some from this afternoon.

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Zoo with Friends

Last Wednesday, Sophia and I went to the Fort Worth Zoo for the second time ever, and met our friends Kathleen and Andrew, and Kathleen’s dad.  Unfortunately there were too many kids from school trips there for Sophia and Andrew to run around the whole time, but they both did great in the stroller, and were still able to see quite a bit and have a good time.  Here are some pics:

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

It’s the Arctic Avenger (according to the weatherman)

I am so excited that we have been having a real winter this year, because as much as I hate the cold and being cold, I dislike the cold with no purpose (which is what I see cold, unproductive weather as).  So, for the first time since we moved to Texas twenty or so years ago, we have had a real winter, with real snow, multiple times.  It was so beautiful, to walk outside and be transported to a different world.  It makes me long for Canada so much.  Here are some pics of Sophia (and Andy) having fun in the snow:

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

Christmas Pics, Part 2

Plus, D/FW was graced with a beautiful (and chaotic) snowfall for Christmas for the first time in about eighty years.

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

Merry Christmas

“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’ ” — Luke 2:10-11