Sophie’s 2 Year Update
Sophie turned 2 over a month ago – it’s still so crazy to us that we have a 2-year-old now!! Where did our little baby go?!
I’ve been keeping notes on my phone about what Sophie’s been up to lately. It’s so fun to have a snapshot of exactly what she’s like at the moment! Without further adieu, here’s her 2 year update!
Sophie is a very talkative little lady! People always exclaim over how many words she knows – whether it’s songs or just general chattiness. 🙂 She has totally phased out any sign language we used when she was younger, and at this point just loves to make strong eye contact with you and tell you exactly what’s on her mind! 🙂
Sophie can count to ten on her own, and has even counted up to thirteen before! She likes to pretend she’s measuring in her play kitchen, saying “one, two, three, four…” and she often counts objects. It’s so fun for me as a former elementary teacher to see her do one-to-one counting – pointing at each object as she counts. She can also sing a lot of the alphabet, and has learned to identify a couple letters. One day I got her from her nap and she was pointing at a label on her crib and randomly pointed out “S!” and “I!” in the middle of words. It was amazing to see, since we’d never looked at that label together. Another neat comment she made was when Sophie saw Bjorn’s 10-year high school reunion cake; each slice had the number 10 written on it with frosting. She saw the 1 and the 0 and randomly told me: “I, O!” She saw the digits as letters but it totally blew me away anyway, of course! I didn’t even realize she knew those letters that well by that point. She’s daily soaking up way more than we even give her credit for! It’s an amazing thing to watch a little mind develop and grow.
She has a great imagination and lots of ideas for how she wants to play! She says “Pink Bear, heyo!” when she wants you to make her Pink Bear toy say hello. She loves having her stuffed animals and baby dolls go on adventures with her around the house. Often, Annabelle the baby doll gets put into the stroller and she says “Bye bye! Come zoo? Go ‘dis way? Annabelle go to zoo!” and then they walk over to the kitchen to look at her animal magnets on the fridge!
Doing fun magic-grow sponge experiments with Daddy 🙂 
She sure loves snow!
I feel like I can’t even describe everything she says! It’s such an extensive list. We have some favorite quotes or ways that she says things, though:
- She calls a yawn a “big haw” — because “hawww” is the sound people often make when they’re acting out a yawn! So smart! 🙂
- She likes to make up songs, even songs about napping: “Rest…and sleep…and rest, and sleep…”
- We’ve worked with her on not whining when she could use her words instead, and we taught her to say “Please help?” So the entire paragraph that usually comes from her when she’s frustrated now is: “No whine. Whine, EHHH! Peas help?” It’s awesome (and funny) to hear her process it out loud and talk through the not-whining thing each time. 🙂
- The biggest joke she likes to tell comes from one time when she realized she said our in-laws’ horse’s name wrong! His name is Bogey and one night she was talking about him and called him “Buckle” by accident. I didn’t point it out but she caught herself and started giggling. So now her favorite way to joke is to randomly call out “Buckle!!” (We’ve also decided that someday she’ll have to have a horse named Buckle.) She even yells “Buckle joke!” these days, just to make us laugh. 😉
- She calls olives “awfuls,” mixing up the soft f sound she hears and the l. Too cute.
- When Sophie talks about wanting to hold something, she says “Uh holduh dis!” We love it so much! And when she wants to be carried or held, she says, “Mama holdju!” or “Daddy holdju!” It’s the sweetest thing.
- Hair clips = “clip clips.” The show “Curious George” is “Monkey George.” “Good job” = “jib job!”
- But probably our favorite thing she says at the moment is “tummy bottom” instead of “tummy button.” Too cute!
She LOVES farming with Daddy!!
Speaking of animals, she’s really into animals. She’s a bit more interested in building recently (she asked me to help her build a robot yesterday), but for the longest time, she’s especially been into nurturing animals and babies. Sometimes the animals get “hurt” or sad or hungry and she has to shush and comfort them, but oftentimes there’s a pretend nap time and diaper change involved.
Sophie is so sweet, thoughtful, and inclusive! At her birthday party, she looked around the room at her loved ones and bent down to each person sitting on the floor and said, “He-LLO! He-LLO!” 🙂 And she often encourages Bjorn and me to do a “fammy hug” (family hug)! She likes to grab my water bottle and bring it to me to remind me to drink. She loves getting up close to your face and earnestly saying something, followed by “Okaaay?” 🙂 We joke that Sophie is our “safety officer,” because she will watch me do a task and say, “Careful, Mama!” or she’ll go behind us and make sure we close the baby gate on the stairs right away. 🙂
First braid!! 
Another pony ride 🙂 
First time at the dentist!
I love seeing her personality come through more and more every day. She’s got some similarities with me, and some similarities with Bjorn, but she’s definitely her own person! Sophie is more independent than I was at her age; I was more of the “hide behind Mom” type, and Sophie is a neat mix of cautious (in new situations) followed by being bold and curious…and when it comes to things she’s used to, she’s downright outgoing and calmly confident!
Activities:
We’ve kept a pretty busy schedule this year, and especially this fall! It’s quieting down at the moment, because we’re anticipating the arrival of baby brother, but it sure has been fun taking Sophie to our various activities and commitments! (And it’s great for us to get out of the house, too!) I talk about these more in-depth in our Fall 2019 Pregnancy/Life Update, but Sophie has loved being involved in ECFE (early childhood classes), CBS (a full morning of fun Bible study programming), a Mommy & Me dance class, and more! We’re sad that our dance class session has ended but we hope to do it again in the future! She has gained so much from all of these activities: songs, dances, new stories, new friends, learning to sit and listen, and so much more. (And she sure plays “school” with us at home: “Mama, sit! Listen story!”) I’m so proud of her! It makes my heart twinge a little bit every time I peek into a classroom and see her participating and acting like such a big girl!
Sophie LOVED her dance class so much! 
She learned stretches and several dance terms/moves, too! 🙂
Favorites:
Sophie has a lot of favorites. There’s not much she doesn’t have enthusiasm for in life! She loves her beloved Pink Bear, her fox Wubbanub pacifier (named Felix), music, drawing, her play kitchen, having people over (she likes to say “Come Sophie’s house?”), family, and reading books! Right now she’s really into the movie “Frozen,” especially the song “Let It Go.” She and Bjorn love singing Disney songs together. Sophie loves horses and puppies and kittens. 🙂 She’s ridden a horse at least 6 times by now – from miniature ponies all the way up to large horses for pony rides! We’re so proud of her – she is calmly confident when she sits on a horse! One of her favorite parts of the day is when Daddy comes home from work. The two of them have a special relationship; it’s been way too much fun for me to see Bjorn jump into the role of Daddy over the past couple years!
I’m sure I’ve forgotten things, and I know I haven’t listed every sweet little Sophie-quote, but I’m going to wrap up her 2 year update here.
It goes without saying, but having this precious little girl in our life is such a gift. Bjorn and I pretty much mention it every evening: “Isn’t she just so sweet? Isn’t she amazing?” Little did we know the depth of love we’d be hit with back when Solveig joined our family in October 2017. <3 Thank you, God, for the gift of being parents!! Sophie, we love you so.
