Update

It turns out that Sophie is even smarter than we thought, and we already thought she was pretty smart! Tonight before her bath, she wanted me to read her a book with lots of pictures of babies in it. I said I would read it later because it was bathtime now. After she had gotten all ready for bed, we were out in the family room, and I told her, "Sophie, go get me that book with all the babies in it. Can I have that book please?" She turned around immediately, ran into her room, and returned with that book! John was shocked, but I thought it could have been a coincidence because we had left it right inside the door of her room, and maybe that was the first book she came across. We read that one, then I told her, "go get me another book," and she did. (Getting an unspecified book is no big deal.) Then I wanted to really test her, so I told her, "remember the book called Goodnight Moon? Go get Goodnight Moon and bring it to me." Like all her other books, we've read that one several times, but it's not in the top three or anything. Plus, it was on the shelf with all her other books. Well, she went right to her room and got it! I was so proud of her. It also made me realize how much of what we say she really must understand.

Tonight she barely ate any dinner at all. We were all eating together, and she wouldn't even try any food that was on the table, even the grilled cheese sandwich John made for her. After a while, she started to whine, so I just let her get down. One policy I really try to stick to is that eating is not going to be a fight. I don't want her to have negative emotional associations with being at the table and trying new foods... at least not this early! So I let her get down when it became clear that she was not willing to eat any of the food. She crawled around the floor under the table for a while, eating old Cheerios (yum!). Then she went over to the pantry, made some excited sounds and brought out the carton of goldfish crackers. I saw how excited she was to have found them, and I realized for the first time how hard it is going to be to tell her "no." I hate the idea of disappointing her. :(

Also, I did forget to include one of her words in the last post. She says "bye-bye," but we don't necessarily think she knows what it means.