Sophie is Talking

Well, I guess she's been talking for a while, but the difference now is that most things she "says" are intelligible attempts at real words.  So that really changes the atmosphere around here.  Some updates:

• Since baby Ben was born, John has pretty much taken over Sophie's morning and bedtime routines: getting her out of bed, giving her breakfast, bathing her at night, reading bedtime stories, and putting her in bed.  She gets very excited when he comes home from work, and they usually spend quite a while just playing and horsing around while I cook dinner.
• Her language is, as expected, really exploding right now, which is a lot of fun.  In the past couple of weeks she's become much more adventurous about trying out new words or imitating what we say.  She seems to have all of her books memorized, and can fill in a lot of the words when prompted.  One of her funnier imitations came from her habit of banging her cups upside down on her high chair tray so that all the liquid leaks out.  Once when I came over and saw it, I said, "Sophie, look... you got milk everywhere."  I was trying to say it sternly and get her to see that this was bad behavior.  She still does it just as much, but now loves to add an exclamation of "milk [or juice] everywhere!"  I really have to try not to smile.  Now I'm trying to teach her to say "stinky poo" when her diaper is dirty... mostly just for laughs, though.
• Her favorite book this month was The Giving Tree.  It's too bad she's missing the bittersweet deeper meaning of the book, but it's still cute to hear her say that the tree is "happy!"  And oh man, is she excited when we see once again that the boy eats her apples.
• Her new thing is to scream words that she's excited about.  It can be pretty eardrum-shattering and Ben is startled by it, so we've tried to stop her in various ways but to no avail.  She probably can't really control herself.
• She's actually pretty amazing with her letters and numbers!  Not only can she say her alphabet and the numbers up to 20, she reads and counts really well.  She identifies letters all over the place, and in order.  When she's done, she says "yaaaaay!"  Some of the funnier things she has read are "N-O-T-U-R-N-O-N-R-E-D-yay!" and "C-O-L-D-B-E-E-R-yay!"  Once she really startled Ben by poking him in the chest repeatedly in order to identify the letters there: "C-A-P-T-A-I-N-A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E."  She knows the lower case letters, too.  And she can spell her name by heart.
• She knows lots of words in the following categories: colors, animals and their sounds, body parts, and household items.
• Sophie is still very picky about food.  She still eats Cheerios -- plain Cheerios! -- like they're going to stop making them tomorrow.  Other things she likes are chicken nuggets, pizza, hamburgers, and other salty things like crackers and chips -- great!  I've decided to divert some of my attention away from micromanaging her diet for the time being.  I figure as long as I keep the junky stuff away from her and keep offering her bits of whatever we're eating, that's good enough for now, until Ben gets a little older.  I'm trying to get her to eat more independently now that my attention has to be split between the two kids.  She doesn't want to try to use a spoon by herself, though, and sometimes when left to her own devices she does some disturbing things with food (such as eating an entire strawberry, leaves and all, or eating bananas with the peel on).  Other things, like sandwiches, she will only eat if they're being fed to her.
• She really likes to go places in the car.  Sometimes when we go outside and do not get in the car, she is disappointed.
• She's getting pretty attached to the blanket and "Bunnybear" that have previously been confined to her crib.  Now she really likes to get them out and carry them around during the day, shouting "bee-ee [blankie]!  Bah-bah [Bunnybear]!"
• She seems to be getting slightly better about social situations.  The best outcomes happen when people, including me, just ignore her, and eventually she warms up.