With the holidays here, Zach just past the three-month mark, and Sophie's 2nd birthday just around the corner, I wanted to take some time and share an update from the Mason family. There are a few more photos at the end of this post, so please read (or skim!) on...
Well, we're on the tail end of an unhealthy week (and year, come to think of it) in our household. Last week, we attended a group birthday party for Sophie and her four buddies born within a month of her. There were five two-year olds and their three new baby brothers (all under 3 months, including our Zachary). It was really fun to watch all of them together and think of how far they have come in the year since their 1st birthday party, but then 4 of the 5 families wound up coming down with a nasty stomach bug within the next week. It has since made its way through each member of our family. Poor Sophie was miserable (see the photo in the 12/19 blog entry) and we were housebound for several days between that and the huge snowfalls we have been getting. It has given us a lot of time to snuggle in and reflect on the the last year.
The past three months since Zach was born have been a whirlwind. It hasn't been easy for Sophie to adjust to sharing her parents with her new brother, but we are hitting a groove. Though she is sometimes jealous of the new baby, Sophie really adores Zach and gives him lots of affection. The other day we were piled on the couch watching Dumbo and Sophie, who was miserably sick and quite a pathetic sight, was snuggled under my arm, holding her brother's hand. Zachary continues to woo us with his big smile, twinkling eyes, and his easygoing, almost happy-go-lucky demeanor. He's growing much faster than Sophie did at this age and since she's still only about 22.5 pounds, there's honestly not that huge a difference in their size. He's proving to be a good sleeper and is easy to please and comfort. He loves being talked to and tickled, and unlike Sophie he's a big fan of pacifiers--which makes keeping him, well...pacified...much easier!
Zachary has recently started laughing and is generous with wide toothless smiles. For some reason, he finds it humorous when we pull his arms out of his shirt to change him, and he's madly in love with ceiling fans and the mobile over his changing station. On Christmas Day, he gave me the greatest kind of present by reaching his hand out to explore my face for the first time ever, for a minute or maybe two. After the tender mother-son moment had passed, Brian reminded me that I'd better redouble my fingernail clipping efforts!
Zach's almost-two-year-old sister continues to entertain and amaze us, forever keeping us on our toes. We have to remind ourselves regularly that we, the grownups, are in charge of this small person with a clear understanding of what she wants at all times. Lately we spend a lot of time answering the question "What's that, Daddy/Mommy?" and "What's its name?" She's always saying things like "Daddy talk Pink Bunny" or "Mommy talk Leopard" which means that she expects us to talk like her stuffed animals, which she calls her "fwends." Speaking of friends, Sophie is a nurturing mommy to her many stuffed accomplices. She sticks them under her shirt to nurse, carries them around in a giant sling, puts ointment on their diaper areas, wraps them in "bank-a-lets" and pushes them in her toy stroller. Her favorite toy is arguably her baby doll, whom she calls "The Real Baby Zachawy." In fact, all baby dolls are called Baby Zachawy, but there is but one Real Baby Zachawy (and it's not her brother).
Sophie narrates her way throughout the day, like she is in some sort of miniature musical. While she was sick this week, she came up with the tune "Happy Birthday, I'm sick." Almost anything can be turned into a song. The other day, she picked up her dad's Economist magazine, saw our president-elect on the cover and said, unprompted, "Bawack." Then she cracked us up by singing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm", substituting "Old McBama" for "Old MacDonald." And though she says more and more things with accuracy, she often amuses us with words and phrases that are a bit off the mark. Our favorite recent example of this is "heartbeep" instead of "heartbeat." And where she used to always talk about herself in the third person, as in "Sophie's hands are cold" she now talks mostly in the second person, as in "Oh no, you spilled your water."
Sophie has been really interested in counting and spelling and colors lately. She wants to count everything, particularly while placing things in and out of containers or while looking at her books. If she's focused, she does really well matching the numbers she says with the number of objects she's counting. But when she's too excited, she'll just count the first couple of things and then when she gets to the third one, she'll say "free-four-five-six." And her "spelling" really makes us laugh. When she sees letters in print, like on a package or a sign, she'll point to them and say a few random letters, pretending that she can spell. Almost everything is spelled with an H-I-P in it. The other night in the tub she picked up her rubber ducky and pointed to the "HOT" on the bottom and said confidently, "H-I-P spells hot!" It's the same with colors. She'll exclaim proudly, "That's a GREEN balloon mommy" when the balloon is red. But more and more she gets her colors right. Especially pink, for some reason. Is it hardwired in little girls for them to be drawn to pink?
Aside from our kids, there's not a whole lot to report on. The year was mostly focused on settling into our new house (in February) and getting ready for Zach's arrival (in September). We managed to fit in a few fun camping trips and small road trips with Sophie, and rented a camp on Lake Champlain right on the Canadian border, but otherwise we stuck mostly close to home. We're loving our new house and have had fun gearing up for our first Christmas here. We're spending a lot of time cutting, stacking and loading firewood, and Brian has his hands full snowplowing and keeping up with our 20+ year old dump truck. My city mouse has become a full-fledged country mouse!
Well, that's our life in a nutshell. Have a wonderful rest of the holiday season and a bright year ahead!
Silly Sophie
On Christmas day
Sophie & her buddies blowing out the candles on their group birthday cake