It's an early work, sure, but I think it shows a promising sensitivity to color and shading.

For those Grandmothers who have considered themselves unloved when Sophie cries at them

Please also consider that for the last two days, Sophie has also cried at Christie whenever she puts her hair up in a ponytail.

Sophie's latest trick

She's playing peekaboo now, but she really likes to be the one in charge of the game. She clearly gets it when someone else is doing the peeking, but doesn't find it nearly as amusing.

RSV

An infant girl at Sophie's daycare went to the hospital the other day because she was having trouble breathing, and she tested positive for RSV. Time for dueling Wikipedia quotes:

"In the United States, 60% of infants are infected during their first RSV season, and nearly all children will have been infected with the virus by 2-3 years of age." - Great, so it's nothing to worry about, right?

"The Centers for Disease Control consider RSV to be the 'most common cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia among infants and children under 1 year of age.'" - Well, shit.

The truth is that it's a very common infection and generally nothing to worry about, except for the immune compromised and babies who were born premature. But it can settle in the lungs fairly easily, which is apparently what happened to Sophie's classmate.

So I'm taking her to the doctor this morning, and we'll see what he/she says. She slept quite well last night, though it was hard getting her to sleep. I think part of what helped her sleep was that we had three humidifiers and a kettle going, which brought the humidity in the house up to about 45%. The nurse on the 24 line was kind enough to give us some warning signs to look for, and S's respiratory rate is normal, and her skin color is good, so I'm not exactly freaking out.

But there's this rattle in her chest that chills my bones. Here's hoping it's nothing.

Update: Well, it's not exactly nothing, but her blood oxygen levels are good and the doctor thinks she looks healthy. A lung x-ray shows some inflammation of her bronchial tubes, but there's not much we can do except wait for her to get better. Basically, it's what we already knew. She has a bad cough, and we need to keep an eye on it. The difference is that I have some very specific things to look out for now.

Sophie's been experimenting with sounds lately, and different sounds seeming to come up in different situations. One that's been particularly consistent is her saying "nay-nay-nay-nay-nay" when we're doing something she doesn't like, such as using the nose-sucker, putting her down for a nap when she isn't ready, etc.

It could be coincidence, it could be early negation, but my personal guess is that she's calling her Nainie to come up from Florida and rescue her.

Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational [baby in a cute hat]!

;

Around our house, we refer to this as the magical hat of forgiveness. We could totally cut off somebody in Target, take the last jacket off the clearance rack, and then cut in line at the registers, and totally get away with it because everyone would be too busy going "Awwww" at Sophie.

Hypothetically, I mean. We would never actually do any of those things. That would be wrong.

Miss Mara explains it all

 Although I'm not entirely sure that Sophie's listening. Her attention seems to be elsewhere.