Not Everyone Looks Good in Hats

I do believe that I am one of the few that do, however. My first real job (where I stayed for seven and a half years) was at TGI Fridays, back in the era of suspenders and flair and crazy hats. I quickly found that a variety of hat styles suited me and love to go glam with hats when I'm on stage. My daughter, however, may just be one of the hat disabled.

Yes, folks, that's a Steak n' Shake paper hat that she was surprisingly willing to wear for about 15 minutes. Of course, I remember this photo and think that there may be some hat hope for the girl...
Lots fo things have happened since my last blog, so a little recap before the big Easter post.

First, my office is relocating. While we get paid for time that we spend packing up communal areas, we are forced to donate our own time to pack up our own offices. Sadly, the new space doesn't have as many offices, and in a company of lifers, my eight years actually has me as a low man on the totem pole. I, therefore, not only have to pack up my office - I have to downsize back to cubie-land. To give my husband and my brother in law a break a few Saturdays ago, I took Sophie and my nephew Carson to the office for a playdate adventure while I packed up and cleaned out. I had to explain to Carson that an adventure can happen anywhere that you visit someplace you don't normally go or do things you don't normally do. He decided that his adventure involved collecting any keys he found around (like for locking cubicle filing cabinets) and putting on Aunt Debbie's glasses and doing a prissy and not so favorable impression of me. I did happen to catch him being a bit big-brotherly when Sophie started to get hungry-sassy at lunchtime.
On the reading front....Sophie isn't ashamed of her new obsession with reading anymore. She's embracing it. Here she is lounging in her chair and reading (and tasting) her birthday cards.

On the walking front, she's doing quite well and picking up speed. She's mastered the art of the sit-stand transition from her camp chair.

And every Sunday morning when Daddy reads the newspaper, she needs to be a part of the action. Most of the time giving her an ad or book of coupons suffices, but sometimes, it's just not enough....

Happy news, is that Sophie has learned to give kisses. She comes at you saying 'mmmmm' and hits your mouth with hers. Much better than her former attempts which included a lot of tongue and drool. UUGGHH.

This must have been pre-sneeze. Not really sure what she was doing here if it wasn't.

Oh yeah....Sophie's figured out how to climb into her toy box. Hasn't quite mastered the getting out part yet, so the toybox is kind of becoming a new and better playpen - one she choses to enter without crying.

I'll leave you with a picture of Sophie napping with Grandma last weekend while she babysat. Next up...Easter!

Busted!!...Reading??

When I was a child, I loved books. I read, no devoured, as many books as I could get my hands on. I am happy to report that Sophie shares the same love of the written word. I read to her as often as I can (I try to once a day, but that doesn't always happen) and she has quite a few sturdier books at her disposal for perusal at her discretion. The funny thing is, she looks so guilty when she gets caught reading. Here she is enjoying the feely-favorite That's Not my Puppy (thanks Uncle Rick and Aunt Mary!!) on the couch.....

Um...What??....I wasn't reading anything....

Sophie, It's okay to like books.

Look Mommy...it's not his puppy...the tail is too fluffy...this is good stuff!!

And later that same day with another book....
Um....I was just moving it....

Oh, Stinkerbell. Someday you'll get it. Probably right when you hit the age where its not cool to read anymore....

Walking on Sunshine

Yes, Mommy is doing her dance of joy!! Sophie took her first steps on Thursday, March 5th. Like a true theater child, they were in the parlor at Westwood Town Hall where my husband and I were setting up snacks for the show I was producing. The room was big and empty and carpeted and Sophie crawled around exploring while we portioned popcorn and poured sodas. All of a sudden, out of NOWHERE, she stopped mid-crawl, straightened up her legs as if to bear crawl and simply stood up with no assistance or support. Then, two steps were achieved before returning to the floor to investigate some apparently very interesting fuzz. Our jaws dropped!! Although she's not yet walking across the floor, she's up to a consistent 5 or 6 steps in a row now. We are so proud of you Stinkerbell.

As I alluded to earlier, Spring has finally arrived, officially and temperaturally, in Cincinnati. We took the opportunity of the first nice day in forever to go and have lunch at the only place close that had a patio...TGI Fridays. Sophie has mastered the sippy cup, but is also getting quite experienced at the straw. Here she is during her first patio dinner (not at Rally's anyway).

Sophie's First Bee Day

A month to the day overdue, but Happy, Happy Birthday Stinkerbell!! Since Sophie was named after her great grandma Marge (G-G-Ma Marge as we like to call her) and since Marge is unable to leave her nursing home, we decided to bring the party there. All from both of our families were invited and we totally packed the house. As you can get from the title of this post and the invite on the left, the theme was Bees....as was Halloween last year. Man, I'm getting less imaginitive as the years go by.

The highlight of the day for most of us was the cake. My multi-talented best friend Mandy made this wonderful cake for the occasion. I keep telling her she needs to start a catering business. I mean, who wouldn't pay serious money for a cake like this??

But, before digging in, we decided to do presents first....I was hoping to keep them icing free. First, Sophie snagging some snuggle time with Aunt Sue.

And then the present-paloozaa. She truly got too many to post, so I'll just show off some of the highlights. Cool socks from Sue (okay, a highlight for sock-addicted mommy)...

A very cool big girl outfit complete with capris and her first real headband from Mandy...

The most gorgeous dress EVER (which she will wear to Nikki's wedding in May, no doubt) from Cousins Meggie, Carson, Molly and Aunt Teresa....

A cool puppet book from Uncle Mike and Aunt Pam, which caused a mini brawl between Sophie and Mandy's little boy James...

A nightset complete with a tutu from Gma Judy....

And many, many more adorable gifts... Thanks so much for everything!! I caught this cute pic of crazy boy Carson while we were cake prepping. Those dimples get me every time.
And now....drumroll please.....CAKE!! I went to great lengths to ensure that Sophie's first birthday included her first taste of cake, even fighting of Gma Judy and Daddy on occasion. Here she is scoping out the cake sitch...

I had to shove her hands in the icing to get her started. But once she got a taste, there was no going back. Yes Mommy, my hair needs icing, too!

Luckily, we had the foresight to bring her clean clothes, despite being ill-fitting. We stripped her down and cleaned her up and she snuggled up to Uncle Mike for a little Elmo reading. The icing, however, took two washes to evacuate her hair.

And now, the big news. We took this family pic before we let Sophie at the cake, but it didn't really dawn on my at the time that it was a first family pic. Yes, we have many pictures of us with Stinkerbell, but the morning of Sophie's birthday we found out that she was going to be a big sister. When we were pregnant with Sophie (before we knew she was a girl) we called her peanut. Well, this is the first picture with Mommy, Daddy, Peanut and Cashew. I have a pregnancy bar along the side of the blog showing our progress and, as with Sophie, I'm taking pictures of my belly each month so that we can watch Cashew expand (or, expand Mommy).

Next up....warm weather finally comes to Cincinnati!! Stay tuned...

Hospital Hotel

As any mother knows, there's nothing worse than a sick baby. That look of misery in their eyes...Their inability to tell you where or what hurts...Waking up in the middle of the night with coughing fits...Our little Sophie was not lucky enough to avoid this vicious cycle this winter. We were treating her typical cold symptoms for about a week when she woke up from a nap sounding like Darth Vader. I expected at any moment for the words "Mommy...I am your daughter" to come out of her mouth. Although she sounded just terrible I didn't want to be that mom. You know, the one that calls the doctor for every sneeze, fever or paper cut. We decided to give it 24 hours with a vaporizer on her before we made a move. But when things weren't any better the next morning, we called the doctor. After about 10 seconds of listening to her on the phone, he sent us to the emergency room. Well, Daddy thought this was no big deal and decided to take a liesurely shower and piddle around the house while I got more and more angry. "It's no big deal. I had things I wanted to do today." No big deal? EMERGENCY ROOM. Clearly he didn't understand what I had said. Maybe I stuttered the first time. Finally, he got his butt in gear and we were on our way. After registering, waiting to get an ED room, and waiting in the ED room for her to be examined, our little bubby was getting a bit irritated.

After looking, listening and poking, they brought in a breathing treatment. Sophie's breathing problems had been narrowed down to asthma or bronchiolitis. It was quite a bit of a struggle to get her inside the contraption, but she was so brave.

After another hour, no improvement could be heard after the albuterol, so the verdict was made that it was bronchiolitis, which incidentally just has to run its course, and we were set to be discharaged. While the paperwork was being compiled, Sophie finally got to take a nap on Mommy's lap. Poor thing was so exhausted. That's where the real fun began. This is a pulse oximeter (or 'pole sox' as I thought they were saying for a while) which reads levels of oxygen saturation.

Normal levels are between 91 and 101. Sophie's levels, when awake were in the mid nineties. Once she fell asleep, however, they dipped all the way to 77. Our emancipation was quickly curbed and we were admitted for Sophie's first hospital stay. Aside from the milk Mommy had packed in her diaper bag and some life-saving cheerios, Sophie hadn't eaten all day. The first thing we did once we got our room was to order room service.
We had to miss Sophie's cousin's dance performance that afternoon due to our adventure, so on their way home, Aunt Michelle and Brooke and Tara stopped by to visit.

Because of Sophie's respiratory issues, the crib was propped at an angle at the head for ease of breathing. Therefore, they had to take some added precautions to keep Sophie contained at times when we were out of the room or sleeping. Plastic sheets hung down from the canopy above the crib to keep her contained. It was reminiscent of both John Travolta's 'Boy in the Bubble' and many jail visitor scenes I have seen in movies. We decided to be a little silly and play with it so she wouldn't be scared.Sophie's congestion was taking a form too thick to be extracted by a regular suction bulb. She had to be vaccuumed out with a horrible contraption attached to the wall. After staying the night with oxygen saturation levels staying in good ranges, the only obstacle remaining was being able to suction her with a bulb at home. With the help of saline drops, it took three more days to get us out of the hospital and back home. We couldn't let her down to crawl around on the floor, so when she wasn't in the crib, she was on one of our laps or in our arms. After a while, you couldn't even tell that she had been sick. Mommy stayed with Sophie all day and night, but the highlight of her day was always when Daddy came by after work to eat dinner with us.

We were finally released a week before Sophie's birthday. Next Up...Sophie turns 1 and big news!!