7 Months (and one week) Home for Curlie Girlie!

Sofia continues to challenge us in ways we never imagined possible :) She keeps us on our toes for sure! I've said it 100 times already, but if she was our first child, she may have been our only....clearly God knew what he was doing here HAHA! I say that very endearingly, promise! Sofia lives life in a way I've NEVER seen anyone else live like before! Her spirit cannot be contained, nor should it! If Sofia was still in the orphanage today, I wonder how much longer it'd take to put out her fire....it's a sad thought.

As much as that "fire" drives me crazy some days (literally like a few deep breaths away from insanity), I sort of wish I could live my life more like her! Nothing holds her back from showing her true emotion and every emotion she feels she feels it to the fullest extent possible. Can you imagine if we all went around really showing people how we felt all the time? Well, I guess that could be really awesome, and at the same time, could land some of us in jail! If she's happy, she's REALLY really happy and her whole face lights up, she belly laughs and claps and yells with excitement! People around her can't help but smile and laugh too. She really brings so much joy to this world! If she is mad, she is REALLY REALLY REALLY mad.....frightening, believe me! I am not used to temper tantrums, and Sofia is the QUEEN of temper tantrums. I'd say we're at about a 70/30 happy/mad mix these days (well most days anyways)!  Of course we have the days where it's reversed too!

I'd be lying if I said I'm not afraid for this girl when she starts school. She's READY, like yesterday, even though she's not even 2 yet.....she soaks up everything around her, doesn't miss a beat. She watches everything and then tries for herself....well as long as you don't ask/tell her to! She has a huge naughty streak and is always pushing the boundaries to check and see how far she can go (reminds me SO much of Zoya when she was little). For example, she is not allowed to open the drawer under the tv stand, so she'll open it, look at me and smile with one eyebrow raised (if she could talk she'd CLEARLY be saying, "yah lady, whatcha gonna do about it?" When I tell her to close it, she gives me the same look and very very slowly pushes it closed with one finger while smiling the whole time.  THEN! She looks at me again, uses one finger to get as close to the drawer as possible without touching it (think, "I'm nooooottttt touching youuuuuuu!") She's also dangerous, really dangerous....so much in fact, I'm surprised we haven't had any major accidents. The closest call was last week when she snuck through the stair gate and (she is soooooooo fast!) I saw her at the top of the stairs. I yelled to her to STOP! She actually listened, went to sit down and fell down 6 stairs in a scorpion feet-over-back-of-her-head face plant. She sustained a minor brush burn to her forehead and my ears sustained some permanent hearing loss. She did NOT learn her lesson, though. The next close call was while I was doing dishes (literally 3 feet away from the stove) when she snuck up behind me, pulled herself up to the stove and TURNED ON THE BURNER! I believe about 10 minutes prior to that happening my facebook post was, "Sofia is going to set this world on fire!.......and then blame someone else...." not even joking! The good news is, I think I yelled so loud I must have REALLY scared her because she startled pretty bad and fell off her feet and hasn't since touched the stove! If I turn my back for a second she can be seen climbing furniture, standing on chairs, trying to dive out of her high chair, and dumping buckets of toys. She absolutely cannot STAND being told no or being moved away from something she shouldn't be doing. She cries and screams as if someone put spikes in her seat (as my husband says).  She's also had a few close calls with choking. I've had to give her the heimlich twice! Once she somehow got Zoya's cheese stick and another time she choked on her lunch! We're working on helping her learn to chew better, but every time it happens it's so scary! Are you getting an idea of my days yet? :)

(here she is about 10 minutes after one of her choking episodes....she was still shaken up)

(feeding therapy)

To help her learn to regulate her sensory seeking craziness, we're doing quite a bit with her as I talked about in my last post about her. We've recently added a weighted compression vest about 3 times a day, paired with a clip on binky for oral self soothing and we've noticed great improvements. She is constantly in need of opportunities to safely crash, push heavy things, and climb. We got her a big slide and within two days she mastered climbing the steps, swinging her leg over and sliding down! We let her push Mila and Zoya in the mini radio flyer wagon as well. We pile cushions and pillows on the floor for her to dive into...all in hopes that  if we give her safe and controlled opportunities to do some sensory seeking, her dangerous sensory seeking actions will decrease, and they have (although not enough! haha).

(wearing her weighted compression vest)

Oddly enough, with her CRAZY WILD personality, she is actually shy! Yes, Sofia is shy! She won't let anyone new pick her up. It takes her about an hour to warm up to even some familiar people when they come over. She refuses to wave to cashiers and buries her head in my shoulder or pulls back if someone gets too close or tries to talk to her! If someone holds out their hands to pick her up, she crawls away really fast or comes to find Shawn or I. I don't know how the two pieces of her personality coexist, but I can tell you this....the secret to keeping her tame is having friends come over because of course then she is good as gold (and of course nobody believes my wild stories about her then!) All in all, I think it's a very good sign of bonding. She is clearly very comfortable in her familiar environment with her family and that's when all hell breaks loose she shines!

She is doing so much these days. She is one month and one day away from her 2nd birthday! Then we'll have two 2-year olds and a 5 year old. She is getting 4 teeth at the same time. Once these cut through the only ones left will be her 2nd molars! She is walking around the house, although she still crawls often as well. Her appetite is amazing and there are only a few foods she won't eat. She has a huge collection of signs and it usually only takes showing her the sign once or twice before she's got it down! She can feed herself with her fork and is almost independent with her spoon as well. She plays very well on her own and we're working on sharing :) She finally has a long enough attention span to sit and look at books or watch a 20 minute Mickey Mouse or Elmo show.  She still loves taking baths, going on walks, and now riding in the car (she hated it when she was first home). Her newest thing is "singing." I have one video but can't post it here because it's of her singing on the potty! Take my word for it, though, it's adorable! She sings when she hears certain songs, or sometimes just randomly as she's playing. Of course it's not with any words yet but lots of sounds and clearly she knows exactly what she is singing! She loves music and movement (just like Zoya and Mila) and she and Mila will be taking a "mommy and me" dance class with me starting in a few weeks! She hasn't had a dirty diaper in at least a month now since we put her on the potty when we know she has to go. We're working on getting he to tell us, though. She signs "poop" when we ask her to which is hysterical (with mouth popping sound and all) and soon I think she'll be able to tell us when she needs to go. Once she's walking full time she'll be ready for a potty schedule and hopefully she'll do well with it!

Medically, she recently had a sleep study......Daddy bravely took her, and she was not too happy about the whole thing, but really what 1 year old is? 

and we just found out that she has sleep apnea as well.....sigh.....she'll likely be getting her tonsils and adenoids out like Mila just did. I'm *hoping* maybe some of her wildness is due to lack of sleep. With Mila, prior to her tonsils/adenoids surgery, she was very lethargic because her sleep quality was poor, but the doctor told us that some kids who aren't sleeping well are very impulsive, and emotional....oooooooooor maybe that's just Sofia's personality! We will see, I guess! She has a second echo next week to check on the borderline pulmonary hypertension reading she got at her last cardiology appointment, and mostly because we'd been noticing some blue episodes where her upper lip and tip of her nose turned blue when laughing or crying. We haven't seen it much recently and when it was happening bloodwork showed she had a little virus, so we're hoping it's nothing major! Sleep apnea can cause pulmonary hypertension, so if this echo shows PH again, it could resolve once the sleep apnea is taken care of.

Here is a video of her walking skills....can you say trouble? 

And another cute walking video with her wearing her squeaker shoes! I love these things because I can hear her throughout the house! Sneaky mama!