Tennis Match

Sofia gets dolled up for Sunday tennis at the park.

Sofia's signature pose (Thought I'd get one of the outfit before the spaghetti dinner. Ironically, I was the only one that ended up with spaghetti sauce on my shirt).

1.2 seconds before the face plant into the wood chips. I guess I should have been catching instead of taking pictures.

More Little Gym, More Parties

After Sofia got invited to The Little Gym birthday party, she enjoyed it so much that we took her back the next Saturday for a Little Gym free class session. The class session was apparently a bitter disappointment for her. After all it was a "class" and not a birthday party. None of her friends were there that she could run off with while the rest of the children did what they were supposed to. It's almost like she didn't know why we would waste gas money to even bring her there. I mean, there wasn't even any cake.

We spent about the first third of the class time trying to convince her to go inside and participate. She had a very hard time. Ray ended up sitting inside the gym area as her security blanket and she was able to integrate with the group better towards the second half of the session. We thought this might be all the more reason to enroll her in regular classes. After all, we could clearly see she enjoyed the activities and it seemed to give her a sense of pride and confidence yet she was doing miserably with the social aspect and we thought it might be the right catalyst to help her in that area.

Sofia eagerly awaiting cake at Trevor's 3rd birthday party. After all, isn't that what we're all here for?

So we set her up with some classes every Saturday morning. As luck would have it, the next weekend she was invited to another Little Gym birthday party, so we didn't want to tire her out and skipped the class so she could attend the party instead. This being her third time there, she was full of confidence, maybe a bit too much, walking the beam without looking, and acting like she knew everything to do. Still, not wanting to follow directions during the organized activities.

Her second Little Gym class the week following this party was a bitter disappointment for me. It was just her and me this time. She played with some toys in the lobby while we waited for her class to start. Everything seemed as though it might go OK this time. When the class started, she refused to go inside. Lots of talking, encouraging, convincing ensued to no avail. I walked her in and she moped around moving a few centimeters at a time with her head hanging down whining. After a while she started to cry. One of the teachers tried tirelessly to help her, picking her up, carrying her around, putting her down, picking her up... After a ridiculously long time of this, she was crying so much that they just brought her out to me. It felt like an exercise in torture for the both of us I think, not to mention the teacher. After a while I walked in with her offering to help her do some activities. A third teacher at the front desk noticed the struggle and came to help.

Sofia has no appreciation for the spotlight being on someone else. She makes this known by paying that person absolutely no attention.
After sitting on her circle for 10.4 seconds, she ran off to do the important work of gymnastics. She was very upset when I coaxed her back to give her present to the birthday boy and another little girl had already given it to him.

Sofia clearly wanted to do the activities, but simply couldn't handle having to do what everyone else was doing. I can't comprehend why it is that she is so resistant to being a part of the group. We convinced her that I wasn't allowed to help her and that the other nice teacher would help just her to follow along. She would comply one second and rebel and run off the next despite all the over the top encouragement and praise everyone gave her when she finally would do something like walk across the bean holding the teacher's hand. I think this is what made it so hard for me. I see other children that are shy and have a hard time integrating with the group. And it breaks your heart because you want to help them. And I see other kids that are the "trouble makers" running off and not listening doing whatever they want. It's hard to have any empathy for these kids. But Sofia is both and it makes you feel like the shy side is not real, like she's just playing you and it makes you even more unsympathetic towards her.

Out of the hour session for the class, she managed to participate of her own free will for about 5 minutes during which they were playing with the parachute. At the end, she sat eagerly awaiting her stamps and enjoyed making faces with the boy next to her that was sticking out his tongue and smiling at her. For a brief moment she found someone she could connect with.

Yeah, that's what I talking about.

The next week, the day before class we saw a tutu at the mall. I ventured to try a bribe and promised her we could get one for her if she did well in class. She said she wanted a blue one. The next day, all seemed well again. I told her she could bring one stuffed animal to class. She chose Curious George, how appropriate. She was excited to get the blue tutu after class. The class started and she declared she wanted to sit on the parent seats and not go in. I was getting ready to throw in the towel and ask for my money back. I took her aside and reminded her about our plans for her to do well in class, make new friends, and get the blue tutu. I had no hope that it would work but I had to try before heading out the door. There was some kind of universal shift and it worked! What? It worked? How? I don't know. I took her inside and told her I would sit on the floor by the door and watch her but if she came over to cling on to me, that I would have to go out with the rest of the parents. I sat on the floor the entire time. She participated beautifully about 95% of the time. She only ran up to me a few times, but with a smile on her face to give me a kiss because she was so happy with herself and then she would run right back and rejoin the activity. She listened, she participated, she tried hard, she was patient, she informed the teacher every time one of the three "trouble makers" would run off. It was amazing.

After class, I told her how proud of her I was. She interrupted me with some nonsense story or question about something as though she didn't even want me to say anything about it, like it didn't even matter to her. We got the blue tutu. I told her I was excited for her to do it all over again next week. She replied, "Next week, I will cry".

School Pictures

I just happened to click over to ParentWatch, the online video service for our daycare, to check on the kiddies and I got lucky to spot them in the gym right during their school pictures. How cute! Their first posed pictures together. I just hope the look of strangulation on Marcelo's face from Sofia's forceful embrace is not too obvious. But no, really -how cute! She even gave him a little kiss on the cheeck when they were done.

Eating Issues

Sofia tries hard to not look too excited over my lunch offering.

Although Sofia started off as a voracious eater, so much so, that she would often take in a little more than she could handle and end up vomiting milk out her nose, she now exhibits the typical toddler eating behaviour that is randomly picky and I can only say, yes she does have some gene remnants of mine after all.

As a baby, Sofia would make her Avent bottle squeal from the sucking power and would down those things like nothing. At the time, they didn't even make them big enough to quench her appetite so we would fill those 9oz bottles to the brim. When she started baby foods, she didn't skip a beat. After the first spoon of rice cereal, that girl's eyes lit up like firecrackers. It was the most important discovery of her short life. She ate enthusiastically and would immediately open her mouth for more after taking in each spoonful. She loved food so much, baby cereal (yuck), veggies, fruits, everything, that her first baby sign language was the sign for "more". And she used it often and adamantly.

People's eyes often have a look of alarm as she puts gigantic size spoonfuls of things in her tiny mouth and manages to eat them without the need of the heimlich maneuver. I just tell them she gets that from her dad (although he does manage to choke himself on his own saliva quite frequently).

But now, she decides she doesn't like certain foods by using senses other than taste. She may not like their general appearance, color, texture, the way they lie there on the plate or who knows, maybe their poor attitude towards her. Once she decides she doesn't like something, she will usually ban it from her plate onto someone else's plate which is always lovely or the table.

She generally likes all manner of things I do not: ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, salad dressing, gooey stuff with artificial flavorings, cake, sugar, frosting and sweets of course go without saying. Anything you can dip other things in is usually good. More like me, she loves bread and butter; unlike me, she would be just a happy to eat bread with ketchup. She loves, loves, loves juices of all kinds and will drink them probably into a comma if not monitored and regulated.

On this fine day, that we were at home, I tried to fix her a healthy, appealing lunch in hopes that she would not dissect the sandwich and throw the offensive turkey meat at my face. It worked! She ate "the boys" all gone and waited until the end for the prized strawberry. I won't have to throw an entire plate of food in the garbage. Thank you Sofia for your gesture of kindness today. Believe me, I'm probably the only person on the planet that understands how you feel when you don't want to eat something and I promise I'll never force you .... too much.

The Little Gym

Sofia got to go to The Little Gym for a school friend's birthday party last Saturday. It was her first time there and wow did she really like it there.

Sofia has one of two reactions when she enters a social situation:

a). everybody look at me, I will now perform all variety of circus acts for you and you will wish you could be me or

b). shy, I don't want to participate and just want to cling on to you and don't anyone dare talk to me.

In this case it was b. She decided to observe the situation for a bit in order to decide wether it was worth her while to become an active participant or not. Maybe it was just the newness of the activity that made her really have to observe and figure out what this was all about.


Sometimes she seems like such a pushover for peer pressure, I'll do whatever he's doing just because he's doing it sort of thing, a follower. And other times she seems to march to the beat of her own drum no matter how strong the group beats to another.


After a long warm up period she took off running to all the different stations like it was some kind of competition.


After giving the beam a quick test and apparently deciding she was quite good at it, she engaged in lab rat-like circular behavior walking the beam, jumping down and getting up on it, motioning for my hand and positioning my hand in the required clasp to walk the beam again over and over.


Falling in with the group, finally, but only momentarily. Every few minutes, she would run off with her friend Nate Dog to some far corner of the gym. Hmm, I guess I know what I can expect when she starts Junior High.

Sofia demonstrates the art of hiding in plane site

Sofia's favorite part of the party, birthday cake of course. I don't think there's anything she loves more. She probably give her right arm for birthday cake