Sophia continues to be “intense,” but has added some teenage-angst and attitude to her personality.  She has a very focused mind, and knows exactly what she wants to do, when and how.  She continues to be the perfect combination of both Andy and I, which means neither of us exactly knows how to handle her!  It has been a fun year, though, and I love watching her develop from a toddler into an incredibly smart, sweet, loving, passionate, wild little girl.

Sophia is still a technology bug, just like her dad.  We have actually traded in her old iMac for an old Mac laptop due to problems finding games that were more advanced than the ones we had.  It took her under an hour to successfully master the trackpad, though she will occasionally plug in a mouse (on her own) when she requires extensive clicking and dragging.  Her favorite thing to do on the computer is to go to pbskids.org and play the games or watch the video clips.  Eventually we will add a program to accompany the phonics she is working on, as well as other educational games.  She still likes to text people, though it has progressed from her name and letters to anyone who is left up in the “messages” app to taking a photo of me, the dog, or the store we are at, and then finding Andy’s name and cell phone number in the contacts and sending it to him.  She loves to watch Andy on the computer, and frequently tells him she is going to “work on Exadata” when she grows up.  She has recently been asking him if he will teach her how to do it “when she is four,” which is an indicator she wants to know now, not in the future.

Sophia went to full-time preschool for the fall 2011, while I worked on some masters classes, but we became disappointed with the program as the year got going and for the spring semester we made the decision to bring her back home and do “preschool” at home, along with going back to the Mother’s Day Out program she went to before I taught school.

We started a math program called Math-U-See that is manipulative based, and she has done really well with that.  She can count to 100 completely on her own, and past that with a bit of prompting.  She recognizes all two-digit numbers, and the number 100, and recognizes that three digit numbers have a hundreds, tens and ones place, but still needs prompting to read numbers 101 on.  She can also skip count by tens to 100, and we have been working on fives.  We have also started preliminary addition, learning concepts like “the 2 block together with the 3 block is equal to the 5 block.”  We have been leisurely going through the kindergarten program that Math-U-See offers and will probably move up to the first grade program when we finish around Christmastime.  We have also started talking about patterns and she has picked this up really fast.  She will create patterns in the car while we are driving to entertain herself, usually of people she knows, or based on who we talked to on the phone, the colors of cars she sees or other things that happen around us while driving.  It is so cute to hear her say “Daddy, Grammie, Daddy, Grammie, Daddy, … that’s a pattern!”  She can get pretty complicated with them, doubling some items, adding three or four different items, etc.

We have been working on reading BOB books collections and have about 16 individual books she can read by herself.  Most of what we have learned is CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, but she does have a handful of longer words that have been thrown in.  She is getting really good at sounding out, though she doesn’t like to do it, just in case she might be wrong.  I try to get her to try the easy “I Can Read” books that Target has, but she is still a bit embarrassed.  However, I offered up McDonald’s as a treat today if she could read a random word I had picked from flashcards (“thing”) and after two tries of saying the sounds, she said it correctly.  Maybe I should offer a reward more often!  We have also been doing a “letter of the week,” though she can recognize both lower-case and upper-case of all the letters now, so it is more for reinforcement and to read our weekly letter-based book and do a letter-based craft.  We have also been working on handwriting, doing a new letter a day, as well as working on writing numbers.  She writes her first and last name without having to see it first, though the “a” in “Sophia” is usually turned into a person, which I absolutely love.

This past year we continued with swim lessons until the summertime, and then due to management change issues and our favorite teacher leaving, we opted to purchase passes to the local waterpark.  Sophia absolutely loved it, and they have a couple of big slides that even the little ones can go down on tubes (with parents), which was fun for her.  She also turned into a major fish around July 4^th.  We went to a friend’s home to celebrate and swim, and after watching their 4-year-old (a couple months older than her) swim on his own all over the pool, she got the confidence to just do it, and it was then hard to keep up with her.  Her older cousins also taught her how to do front flips under the water, which was a trick she enjoyed showing off.

Sophia moved from dance at the preschool to evening classes through the same studio when we pulled her from the preschool.  It was tough, because we would get home right before her bedtime (7pm), but she enjoyed it.  In June she had her first-ever recital.  She got stage fright and stood there watching her teacher the whole time, until the big leap in the air near the end, but she had a blast and loved the experience.  Her favorite part, though, was Andy giving her flowers at the end.  She still asks if she is going to get flowers at the end of the recital this year.  She is in ballet as well as pre-hiphop class this year, and other than complaints about the music being too loud, she is enjoying getting to jump around.  She still says ballet is her favorite, though.  I think it has to do with the twirling.

We also switched from the gymnastics studio we were at to one that is a bit more serious.  We are not thinking we need more from a studio because we have a “future Olympian” on our hands (though that would be awesome if she developed that way and watching the Olympics this summer has given her ideas), but it was causing boredom and behavior problems for Sophia to be in a class with so little challenge for her.  It was the same circuit routine she was doing at 18 months, just without mom.  So, changing it up a bit has really helped.

We got to make a trip to California last October, and did get some beach time in, even though it was cold.  Sophia was thrilled that we went to Huntington Beach’s “puppy beach” and got to see the dogs running around.  We tried to keep her out of the water, but just getting her feet wet turned into an “oops, I slipped when a big wave hit me” and she got soaked.  She didn’t care.  We also went to Disneyland, and it was really cool because for Halloween the park lets out all the villains to walk around.  Andy really wanted to see the Queen of Hearts, but she didn’t make an appearance, but Cruella deVil did, as did Cinderella’s wicked stepmother and stepsisters.  Sophia rode her first real rollercoaster, the Matterhorn, and loved it, even though she had no idea what to expect.  She also got to meet many of the princesses, though freaked out when “Flynn Rider” came in to see her and Rapunzel.  (She was Rapunzel for Halloween, complete with the blonde hair wig!)  We also went to the Los Angeles Zoo, which was something we opted to do instead of the Aquarium of the Pacific.

For Sophia’s birthday, she decided she wanted an “Angry Birds” bounce house party.  We rented a bounce house room at the local bounce house provider, and there were 5 structures, two slides and three other bounce houses.  Sophia had a few friends from the Mother’s Day Out program and a few friends from around the corner come, and she had a blast.  On her actual birthday, Andy had to work at a client site in Houston, so Sophia and I went to the Houston Zoo after dropping him off.  I have to say that the Houston Zoo is my absolute favorite of all the zoos we have been to so far.  I loved the way it was set up, I loved how “close” you could get to the animals, and in spite of the heat and humidity, there were plenty of places to sneak indoors for a quick blast of air conditioning.  We spent hours there waiting on Andy to finish up his work, and then stopped at a cupcakery before making the long drive back home.

So, this year, we are planning (hopefully) a trip to the Northwest for Sophia to meet all her cousins up there (finally!), and we would be disappointed if we couldn’t make it to Southern California again, though it is all very dependent on Andy’s work schedule.  We did have a trip planned to head that way in June, but it was cancelled when Andy had to go out of town on business at the last minute.

I am having issues uploading photos again (of course), but I will post those once Andy gets home and helps me figure out why it isn’t working.

Sophia is a technology bug, just like her dad.  She loves to use our phones to play games, including Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, Train Conductor, Coin Dozer and other “adult” games, along with the games we have that are geared at kids.  She also uses the phone to watch movies and TV shows, and can load up Netflix and scroll to her shows faster than I can.  She loves to play on the computer, and we have acquired an old iMac that plays some kid games.  However, she is also happy just typing her name into a word document, over and over.  She has mostly mastered using a mouse to click and drag, and has been questioned by on-lookers at the Apple store as to whether she is actually aware of what she is doing.  She has also discovered using the phone to text messages to people, and will “text” whomever happens to be open in the messages window.  She precedes all of her messages with her name, and then texts a jumble of letters (though with auto-correct, sometimes she sends words).

Speaking of letters, she can visual recognize most of the alphabet, though does get hung up on M, W and T.  She spells out words, and undersands that they stand for the whole word, but she has yet to start sounding things out.  Honestly, when we attempt to work with her, she won’t sit still long enough get get much done.  She also can recognize the numbers 1-9, and understands the basics of a digital clock (that there is a time represented by the numbers, and it relates to when we do things).  She has memorized Andy’s phone number and Grandma’s phone number.

We still watch a lot of TV and movies, though it has been taken by Sophia to the next level.  She now has most of the movies we watch memorized, and quotes them at the oddest times.  I have been told, while shopping at Target, “you can never use my hair again, Mother!” (Tangled).  It has gotten so frequent that she now finalizes each quote with “that was from ________,” because I generally ask.  Andy, of course, the movie-quote king, is thrilled.  She will also explain the entire movie to you if she thinks you haven’t seen it, so that you understand the plot.  Her favorite movies at the moment are Rio and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, both which have led to some interesting discussions about naughty words, selfish behavior, and violence/fighting.  However, she is still obsessed with princesses and routinely watches Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Tangled, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast.

This past year we continued with swim lessons, and spent many days this summer at Grandma’s pool.  Sophia can hold her breath across the width of the 25-foot pool at swim lessons, and she still loves to play in the water.  We took a trip in March to California and got to stay right on Seal Beach in a rental house.  I told Andy afterward that I’m pretty sure Sophia will move away from us to California as soon as she graduates high school.  She and I both cried that we had to leave the beach.  She constantly asks when we can go back.

This past summer was one of firsts, including dance lessons and an attempt at ice skating lessons.  Sophia is always willing to try something new, and after watching hockey on television, decided she wanted to play hockey.  Andy and I took her to a public skate session and she loved it, so we signed her up for skating lessons.  Unfortunately, after about 5 or 6 falls on the ice during the lesson, she wasn’t as keen on playing hockey as before.  We couldn’t even get her out onto the ice for the second lesson, and decided we will wait until she is a bit older.  She also started dance lessons, which we are excited is offered through her preschool by the local dance company.  Sophia is so exhausted by the end of the day, I dreaded taking her to a dance class in the evening.  This is the best option, as the dance teacher comes from the studio once a week to teach the class during the day at the preschool, and it is still considered part of the studio’s classes (which means she will have a recital at the end of the year, just like the other classes).  Sophia likes to show off her moves and practices daily, dancing to whatever music is on in the background.

Sophia’s other new hobby is singing, and it is super cute.  She not only sings the songs she learns in school, but sings along to the music in the car or that we play at home.  On the way home from preschool last week, I heard her singing along to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.”  I shouldn’t have been surprised she knew so many of the words, what with her mad memorization skills.  Sophia has two groups of music she likes, and has named them “Phia’s Girls” and “Phia’s Boys.”  Phia’s Girls consists of alternative/indie musicians like Adele, Norah Jones, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, A Fine Frenzy, Sarah Jaffe, Neko Case and others.  Phia’s Boys are similar style musicians, but generally less requested.  Occasionally she likes to listen to “hot 100″ type music.  Usually when we listen to the radio she requests KXT 97.1, the public music radio station in the area, because they play the music she likes most of the time.

Sophia still loves to eat, and her favorite foods are still cheese-based (like grilled cheese, mac ‘n’ cheese, or cheese quesadillas).  However, as a family we have taken steps to cut out most grains from our diet (check out this or this or this), she has the option of eating these much less.  However, she is slowly taking to actually eating meat (if you don’t call it meat – it has to be beef, chicken, fish, or even more specific steak, hamburger, lemon chicken, tilapia, etc), and she still loves vegetables and fruits.  She also loves to eat eggs for breakfast, though won’t try bacon or sausage.  She still does really well stopping when she is full, even if it is a dessert item, but I think we have just finally gotten over the obsession with candy that started last Halloween.  I think we are going to have to be those parents who throw out their child’s candy the next day, because we tried hiding it and keeping it to one piece a day, and she figured out where it was.

Sophia went to her first football games last year, though they were high school.  She is very interested in sports, but doesn’t understand why she can’t go out onto the field and play with them.  She understands it is a competition, and that the teams have names, and that our family is generally cheering for one team over the other.  When she sees a sport on tv or in person she will ask “what does the blue team say,” which means what are they called.  She goes through all the various jersey colors she sees on the field, including whatever ref/umpire is out there.  We did take her to see her first professional baseball game (the Rangers) a few weeks ago and she loved it.  She has already decided she wants to be one of the girls who runs around with the flags every time the Rangers score.  She also ate an entire tub (about 8 cups) of popcorn, half a bag of peanuts (which she flagged down for herself, much to Andy’s chagrin), and a cup of ice cream.  With all that food, she made it through about seven innings before needing Andy’s phone to keep her busy.  After the game there was a fireworks display, and she proceded to literally run circles around us as she watched, shouting “I’m not afraid of fireworks.”  This was at around 11pm.  We hope to take her down to Austin for a UT football game this year, but aren’t sure how she will do there.

I will add pics in the next post (sorry!) but they don’t want to upload at the moment.

However, as the past year drew to a close and I looked back on it, I was really struggling with what God wanted me to do next.  I was miserable teaching.  I felt like I gave 110% of myself, but was only getting about 85% return.  I worked constantly, from 6:30 or 7:00am until 5:30 or 6:00pm at the school, and then went home and worked more until I was too tired to stay awake.  Even with all the working, I could not stay caught up with lesson plans for four separate classes, and grading all of the assignments that were turned in.  The biggest problem, though, was the fact that I, for the most part, had to completely ignore both Sophia and Andy in order to get things done.  Our house started to look like a war zone because I was focused on work and could not keep up with the housework.  I rarely made dinner, and we ate out at restaurants or fast food almost every night.  I was both physically and mentally exhausted, and I didn’t know how to make up the time I was losing.

Finally, when I talked to my principal about my struggles, she told me that sometimes a person has to make sacrifices in order to fulfill a dream.  It was then that it dawned on me that teaching was never really my dream, and that when I started the journey toward teaching almost two years ago, it was just a means toward my real dream, to be a librarian.  However, in the course of those two years, I had so effectively thrown myself into teaching, I had forgotten the whole purpose of doing it in the first place.  In the State of Texas, in order to become a public school librarian, one must teach as a certified teacher for two years.  Though I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be a school librarian or a public librarian, or some other sort of librarian, it seemed that going the public school route would open the most doors.  So, I chose that option, and because of that decision, set myself on the path to teach for (at least) two years.  My real dream, and the one I have always felt that God was leading me to, is to be a librarian.  I hate to say that I wasted my time or sacrificed for nothing, because I believe that God puts people in every situation for a purpose, and I had been at HCA for a reason, but it wasn’t to further the goal of librarian.  I had told God “thanks for the directions” and then wrested the map out of His hands, attempting to navigate on my own, though I can’t read the language it is written in.

So, starting this fall, I am again a stay-at-home-mom and full time Library Science student in the master’s program at UNT.  I am loving it so far, and though I don’t know where my MS will lead me, I am comfortable now not having a final plan.  That is something I have had to come to terms with, acknowledging that God knows where this will lead, but I don’t and that’s okay.  If you know anything about me, you know I don’t do “wait and see” very well.  Proverbs 16:9 says “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.”  Well, I have always been heavy on the first half, and light on the second.  I have always had a five-year-plan, even if it is changing because I have changed my mind.  As I look back on all the changes and the bouncing from one idea to the next, I have realized it has always been because God has given me the signs on which direction to take, and from those small signs I plan out the rest of my life, assuming the road will be straight.  Then I realize I missed the next sign and my next turn is miles behind me.  Finally, I think I understand what it means to really let God lead, and to give Him total control.

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: