Sophie's First Election

Well, she already "voted," but I'm happy I'll be able to remind Sophie when she's older that she was alive for the 2008 election. Time will tell just how ground-breaking this race turns out to be. But no matter what, I believe this will be known as the election where we Americans got ourselves used to the idea of electing either a woman or a black person to the highest office in the country, and that just feels really good! It was not just a Democratic achievement, either. Even though just about everything that Sarah Palin came to stand for in this campaign makes me cringe, her candidacy for VP brought some of the most -- shall we call them "traditionalist"? -- Americans on board with the idea that a woman can be president (because, after all, that's what she would be if McCain were incapacitated while in office). I think we got over A LOT of the hurdles that come with opening up presidential tickets to women and minorities, like the unfounded assumption that women will vote for a woman, no matter what she's running on. Regardless of which ticket wins, I have great hope that when my daughter becomes aware of politics and as she casts her first vote, she'll think it's strange that anyone ever cared who was which gender or which race.

Anyway, cute baby stuff as promised (but if you haven't read my previous post below about violence against women in the Congo, please take a couple of minutes). Sophie is officially mobile. Not crawling exactly. We went to visit Chris and Sara when Vince was about Sophie's age now, and I asked if he was crawling yet. Chris answered, "he can get where he wants to go." That's a good way to put it. She focuses in on something, and wiggles and and twists and whatever else until she gets there. So we've got to watch her. It also seems like she knows she can move, because she usually won't sit in one place for very long before she's trying to get somewhere else.

One funny thing is, she's only mildly interested in her toys. She still likes the playmat quite a bit, but she gets attracted to the funniest things. A table leg, a textured fabric, a shelf full of colorful books (not her own, of course). She LOVES strings and ribbons, and can be amused for a good half hour that way. She's become very grabby lately, so I'm constantly having my hair pulled and face smacked. But it's cute. In the lower picture above, she is very excited about the camera and is about to try to touch it.

She isn't babbling quite as much these past few days, but I feel like I can understand her even better. She has certain noises she makes that have pretty clear meanings, like "I'm happy about what we're doing right now." She's also been honking a lot! I don't know how else to describe it, and I still haven't deciphered what it means. I'll keep working on it. :)