Sophisms

Our second child, my sweet Sophie Rose, will turn one in a couple of months. Her first year is nearly complete, as hard as that is for me to believe. She may well be my last baby, and it is difficult to accept that these precious baby days are almost over for me. I want to remember all of her little habits and characteristics forever. Sometimes the insignificant things are the sweetest. The following is a list of traits that are uniquely Sophie.

• Squeezing my finger in her chubby little fist while I rock her to sleep.
  

• Finding a sharp edge and making sure to injure herself upon it in some way. And the inevitable result: a very visible bruise, bump, or scrape. See scabbed eyebrow and scratched nose below.
  

• Quickly eating crumbs off the floor before she is caught and/or crumbs are cleaned up.
  

• Fierce independence and general fearlessness, like crawling down the hall to a dark room without any hesitation or sneaking off to a bathroom to discover toilet paper on her own.

• Brazenly dumping out Rylie’s toy bins, sweeping out the contents of her play kitchen, and pulling the clothing from her drawers. Note that she only exhibits this behavior in Rylie’s room with Rylie’s things. She is quite delighted with herself, as seen below.
  

• Proudly exclaiming “uh-oh” when anything falls (including herself).

• Reclining and propping her feet up anytime she is confined to a high chair or stroller. She's typically very laid back.
  

• Singing to Rylie while they are both strapped in their car seats.

• Clinging to my leg, lifting her face to me, and cooing "Mama" in her sweet husky baby voice.
  

• Saying or waving “Bye-Bye” about five minutes too late, after goodbyes have been said and the person has left.

• Wiggling free of every diaper change and, with remarkable speed, hauling her little naked bottom as far and as fast as she can crawl. Happens every time.

• Excited breathy giggles at bath time.

• Pulling hair, particularly Rylie’s, particularly while snuggling in bed in the morning.

• Being able to escape her clothing as you are dressing her. Repeating this maneuver three more times before clothing is securely in place.

• Stealthily stalking Rylie while Rylie is eating a snack and managing to get a piece of the snack eaten before anyone realizes she has it, including Rylie.

• Burrowing her face in a soft blanket or stuffed animal (a clue that sleepy time will come soon).