Julia as Sleeping Beauty…

Sofia as Tinkerbell…

Ready to get some candy…

Sofia is now taking just one nap per day. A couple of weeks ago, it started becoming really difficult to get her down for naps, as well as at night. So, we started skipping her morning nap and giving her only one in the afternoon. And it’s worked out pretty well so far.

She’s saying some new words, but Melissa believes that Julia had a better vocabulary at this point. I’ll need to dig back in the blog and see if there’s evidence of that. She’s doing well with eating and seems to really love bananas, “na-na” as she calls them.

She’s definitely got a bit of a temper and has mini-tantrums a few times a day, but it’s usually not too hard to get her mind off of what was bothering her and make her feel better.

As you can tell from the post below this one, Julia is obsessed with The Little Rascals. Darla has (at least temporarily) replaced the Disney princesses as who she wants to be when she’s pretending.

She’s very excited about her cousins’ upcoming visit. When she’s on the swings (have I mentioned that she loves going on the swings?), she says “This is how high Kate and Ava are gonna go!”

Sometimes I think she’s got OCD. She wants things a certain way sometimes, and she often gets real upset, even panicky, when she gets food on her arm or clothes when she’s eating.

She’s starting to understand numbers a little better. She can add small numbers together with the help of her fingers and she can identify some double-digit numbers.

Potty training is progressing. Almost there!

She will be starting a dance class next week. It will be interesting to see how that goes.

Finally, here’s a pic of the two-headed monster…

The original can be found at the 3:05 mark here.

And here, Sofia does her version of another routine in the same episode…

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The original for that can be found at the 5:05 mark here.

Sofia is walking now. It’s a clumsy stride, but she’s getting better and better every day. Last weekend was her breakthrough, when, all of a sudden, she just decided that walking was her preferred means of travel. She had been hesitant to do it without support (human or tabular) until then.

Her language is coming along. She’s trying new words a lot. She says “Mommy” and “Dada” of course. Julia is “Gee-ya.” She says “Baby” and “Baba” (for bottle). For some reason, ball is “Da-gun” most of the time, but she does say “Ball” every once in a while.

We think she has a molar coming in. She’s been putting things in her mouth more than usual and she’s been a little cranky the last couple of days.

We’re looking at preschools for Julia to start in the fall. We like the local YMCA, and it seems like that’s the direction we’ll go in. I think (and I hope) she’s ready for school. It’s tough to know, because, other than the two week daycare experiment, she has had nothing but one-on-one childcare. But when we talk about it, she seems to be looking forward to it.

We need to get her completely potty trained by then though. She’s doing all her #2s in the potty, which is good. She has four regularly scheduled potty trips during the day, and she sometimes has a completely dry diaper at those times (meaning she didn’t go in between), but she’s still has another step to go before she can go completely diaperless.

Julia went to the dentist for the first time a couple of months ago and they said she has an extreme underbite. So, that’s something we may have to deal with at some point.

The girls can be so cute together. Sofia loves to give her big sister hugs and for the most part, Julia is great with her. But sharing is an issue. Julia could show no interest in a particular toy for a month and then, if Sofia is playing with it, need to play with it herself right away. Her inability to listen when we’re talking to her or just do what we say can be frustrating as well.

2. Sleep
She is sleeping pretty well. She’s sleeping on her tummy now. She usually wakes up once or twice a night, but it’s rarely difficult getting her back to sleep.

She usually takes three naps per day, usually 1/2 long. It’s amazing how she wakes up exactly 30 minutes after she goes down. You could set your watch. Julia was the same way.

3. Teeth
Sofia has had two teeth on the bottom of her mouth for a month or so, and now, she’s got a few coming at the top in addition to another coming in on the bottom. Sometimes, she tests them out by grinding her teeth and they do seem to bother her at times.

4. Kisses
Sofia has started making kissing noises when you make kissing noises at her. She doesn’t pucker, but she smacks her lips together.

5. Talking
Sofia has been babbling for a while now, and she’s starting to say “Dada.” Most of the time, it’s “DaDaDaDa”, but every once in a while, she looks at me and whispers just “Dada.”

I think she tries to say “Mama” when you ask, but the result is the kissing noises when she tries to mimic the movements you make with your mouth when you say it.

6. Eating
She has been eating baby food for a couple of months and she just started on Cheerios this week.

7. Anger
In the last couple of weeks, Sofia has started getting angry at times, usually when you take something away from her. Just today, Julia took a block away from her and Sofia responded by letting out a little scream and then hitting Julia in the face.

8. Sitting and moving
She can sit up pretty well now. You still need to be next to her because she can tip over at times, but she can do playtime on the floor with toys.

But she also wants to grab things more than ever. And she’s strong. So holding her is much more difficult than it was a month ago, because she’s always reaching for something she wants to grab or touch (she likes feeling the plaster walls or the door jambs) and it takes effort to keep her from jumping out of your arms.

JULIA
1. Still in Diapers
Julia is slowing making progress with her potty training. She’s at the point where she does most of her No. 2s in the potty, but she rarely requests a trip to the bathroom. We always have to initiate potty time.

Of course, when she does sit on the potty, it becomes a 1/2 hour event. She reads books and doesn’t want to come off.

2. Sleep
Julia doesn’t nap that much anymore, maybe two or three times a week. When she naps though, it can be very difficult getting her to sleep at night. Sometimes, it may take more than an hour to get her down at night on days when she has had a nap.

And she has crashed around 6:30 or so a few days when she hasn’t taken a nap. And she’s prone to afternoon meltdowns on the no-nap days as well. The good thing about no-nap days, of course, is that putting her down to sleep at night is usually much easier.

3. The Princess
She’s in a big princess phase. She loves to pretend that she’s a princess and she loves wearing dresses, a few of which her Abuela made for her.

We were in the mall on Christmas Eve and I was taking Julia to the pet store while Melissa finished some shopping with Sofia. But we walked past the Disney store on the way, and Julia was drawn to it automatically. She then spent the next 15 minutes in heaven, just wandering around the store.

She got two castles for Christmas, a crown and wand, and a Belle puzzle. Her favorite thing at the Disney store seemed to be a Belle pillow, so maybe that will be a birthday gift.

4. Dancing
Julia loves to dance. Her Tia has a tape of people dancing the polka and the two of them have spent many an hour learning the different steps.

5. Christmas
She loved opening presents and trying to figure out who each gift was for (she was pretty successful by looking at the names on the gift - she can’t read, but she knows what letter everybody’s name starts with), but she wasn’t crazy excited to get downstairs when she woke up Christmas morning.

When she did get downstairs though, she separated all of her presents and lined them up by the tree while we waited for Sofia to wake up.

6. Cooperating
It be can very difficult getting her to listen to you. Sometimes, you’re trying to tell her something and she just flat out ignores you. It can be frustrating.

She’s usually pretty good, but when she gets tired, she can be a real handful. Sometimes, we have to threaten her with a timeout or tell her that she can’t wear a dress to get her to cooperate.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And this joke still works, by the way. Julia, inspired by watching the video, has Sofia cracking up as I write this, using the same material.

And from Nov. 30…

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I’m pretty sure this took place in the evening on a day when she didn’t have a nap. So, she was in a tired-but-hyper-and-somewhat-delirious state.

Julia, at two years, seven months and 14 days, weighs 31 pounds.

Sofia, at five months and one day, weighs 18 pounds. She’s a big baby.

I will not disclose my own weight, but I’m working on it. Started running again.

More to come. For now, here’s my favorite pic of the last couple of weeks…

Been trying to update my list of NBA.com work, starting with the most recent writing. Here’s where it stands (with a huge gap in the middle).

This morning, I was sitting on the floor holding Sofia, and Julia was in front of us, jumping up and down. She had coerced a smile or two from Sofia doing this in the last couple of days, but today, Sofia let out a couple of little laughs as she was smiling.

Having them interact like that is a really a cool moment as a parent.

Julia also did something really funny before bed tonight.

She was doing these herky-jerky dance movements (as is her style sometimes), and then she dropped to the floor and started spinning around on her back like a breakdancer. I couldn’t stop laughing. Apparently, she got it from her new favorite show, Wonder Pets.

Sofia had a well-visit on the 15th, where she ranked in the 90th percentile in height, weight and head size. She’s a big baby.

In addition to smiling and laughing, she’s has begun to babble a little bit. She also goes through a lot of different facial expressions now. I need to get some video of that.

Most important, she’s sleeping pretty well at night.