Sophie Photos

Here's what you've really wanted. Photos of Sophie. Some of the pix are from our trip to Colorado in August, others in California, others here in HH. I know I've piled on a lot of writing, and thank you to folks who've read the postings and commented.

The catch is that the photos are surrounded by Sophie stories. Hee hee hee.

She likes to play with other children. Her cousin Ayan visited, and they got along fabulously. When she says her prayers at night, she says "thank you for..."and names the children she played with that day.

We've been waiting for today's milestone: Sophie told us with words that her diaper needed changing. Not that I couldn't smell it, but still exciting. We were riding the bus, and she looked at me with those big blue eyes and said, "Sophie has a wet diaper! Take off the old, put on the new." Oh man, if only we could. I wanted to reinforce her confidence and change the diaper right then and there, but it's a little impossible on public transit, especially the clean Hamburg busses. She didn't want to sit down (smart girl!), so she knelt on my lap for the 10 minute ride home. Hoping that this communication continues. Neither of us want to keep doing diaper checks. She's too old and proud for that kind of privacy invasion.

Sophie likes to go to the tropical aquarium (click for a link). It's wonderful. Since it's a tropical aquarium, there are animals from all over the tropics in interesting habitats. Lots of plants. It's warm (perfect for those cold winter days), and smells like Hawaii. You enter into a Caribbean house with Lorikeets and Ring-Tailed Lemurs. Then we go past the turtles and pythons to the mongoose. Sophie like to see the Nile Crocodiles, the leaf-cutter ants, and the green treefrogs. As she says, "we saw treefrogs munching on a leaf!" We tromp through the mine past the bats and spiders (yikes!) through the cave with the green snakes and bats (squeak!) to the submarine with portholes to a deep water exhibit. Then we go to the tropical reef and have a snack while looking at all the colorful fish. She says she wants to learn how to snorkle and swim in the reef. We hang out a while, then visit the sea horses, the jelly fish, and then go to the big auditorium where one gigantic wall is a deep water exhibit with sharks, mackerel, rays and more. Love it. If you visit us and the weather is cruddy, we'll go.