Road trip!

Inspired by my sister's amazing display of road trip skills (girlfriend has driven her two toddlers to visit me twice-- all by herself!), I decided it was high time for me & Sonia to take a road trip to Nashville and return the visits. After a ton of planning, The Great Sosini and I took off early last Sunday morning to drive the 520 miles from Chicago to Nashville. Sosi and I were able to make the drive in 9.5 hours with just three stops. During one of the stops, Sonia enjoyed running around a gorgeous Kentucky rest stop, making her naked baby doll dance on a bench:


Once we got there, the kids were so happy to see each other! Niki already chronicled a lot of the fun here on her blog, but I wanted to share a few more of the pictures on this blog.

Sonia was grateful to cousin Charlotte for teaching her how to eat her first solo ice cream cone!


Sosini LOVED running around in the backyard and going on adventures in the wide-open spaces. There's something a little Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth about these next two pictures:



Petey loves toddling around in the grass, too!


Sonia enjoyed playing with Charlotte's dollhouse, which hinges open like a book. She thought it was supposed to lay across her lap like a book, too. Goofball!


Charlotte and Peter had a blast showing Sonia their mall's playground....


Peter went down this little slide about 50 times in 15 minutes!


Peter and Sonia loved playing at Peekaboo Playtown (where Niki once spotted former model, Niki Taylor!) while Charlotte was at school.




We had such a great time during our visit! I think Sonia would have been happy staying in Nashville with her cousins forever. But her daddy would have missed her too much, so on Thursday, we packed up the car and headed back north. I am so happy that Sosini was such a good girl on both days of the drive! Thank you so much for the hospitality and showing us such a fun time, Niki, Charlotte, Peter, & Corey.... We love you!

A stylish little panda bear

Sonia got this outfit from her Grandma Jenni and Grandpa Dick for Christmas, but up until now, the skirt has been a little too long for her. Recently, Sosini went through a growth spurt, and the skirt looks great on her now!


The fuzzy vest has panda ears on it! Sonia was walking around, giggling like a goofball, when I put the hood up.





I'm mad that this last picture is a little out of focus, but I love it because it looks like Sonia is posing at the end of the runway.


Thanks for the awesome outfit! Sosi got a lot of compliments on it when she wore it to story time this week.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day from The Great Sosini, who is sporting one of the millions of beautiful jumpers handed down to her by her buddy, Sophie (and carrying around a granola bar):

21 months old: a state of the baby address

21 months.... We're so proud of our crazy little girl! Sonia is learning her words at lightening speed, and the newest development is that during the last few days, she has started stringing those words together. Sentences are just around the corner! The downside is that she knows she's able to communicate, but she doesn't realize that her pronunciation skills are a bit lacking at times. So, Sonia and I both get a bit frustrated when I can't understand what she's asking for.

It's funny to hear how she pronounces some words:

- feet sounds like "wheat"

- open sounds like "apoo"

- robot sounds like "ooh-bok"

- strawberry sounds like "taw-bree" (a bit British, if you ask me!)

Sonia is getting a teeny bit better in the sleep department, but 11 total hours of sleep per day (including her nap) is about all we can ever count on. We have tried just about everything to get this child to sleep more, and we're going to just have to accept that The Great Sosini is not a champion sleeper.

Sosini IS a champion goofball, though! I love this video:

Milestones

I took Sonia to Baskin Robbins yesterday to celebrate another milestone reached.... She had a "first" in terms of potty training, and it involves the number 2. That's all anyone probably wants to hear about that! At any rate, I am very proud of The Great Sosini, and I can't stop giving her hugs and kisses.

"Mommy, can we have ice cream to celebrate my potty prowess?"


Chocolate peanut butter ice cream! Woot woot!


Chocolate mustache!


Yum yum yum yum yum (Don't worry-- she didn't eat that whole thing-- I ate 90% of it.)


Happy little girl!

Bits and bobs (plus a kooky picture)

Sonia is so in love with Yo Gabba Gabba (her favorite Nick Jr. television show) that she begs to either watch it or listen to the soundtrack all day long. Yes, I downloaded both albums of music.... I like it almost as much as Sonia does! Andrew and I bought Sonia a "Brobee" (one of the characters) pillow-sized plush toy, and it is her new best friend. She calls him "Bee-Bee" and carries him all over the house.

Lately, Sonia is obsessed with trying to put her winter coat on all by herself, but it always ends up upside-down, backwards, or both. It's so cute!

The Great Sosini is going through a massive language explosion right now. She often repeats the last word of whatever sentence I just said, and she's desperately trying to string words together. Yesterday while she was taking a bath, she was singing two of her favorite Yo Gabba Gabba songs in a fairly recognizable manner.

Sonia can now say most of all her friends' names, along with their moms' names as well. I tried to teach her to say our last name, but it came out a bit like "hockey". Poor kid-- it's going to be a bit harder to learn how to spell than Evans was for me...

Last week, we went to the DuPage Children's Museum, and I took this picture of Sonia jumping while playing in the wind tunnel. She put the goggles on all by herself with no prompting from me! This picture cracks me up.

Story time at the library

When The Great Sosini was 6 months old, I finally felt like I was ready to rejoin the world. I had pretty much hibernated and only left the house sporadically while I was figuring out this whole baby care business. One of the first things I did was start taking Sonia to story time at the library. She LOVED story time for many months-- especially her favorite librarian, Vicki.

After Sonia turned 1, we had to keep missing story time due to illness, travel, and napping transitions. By the middle of the summer, Sonia was suddenly clingy, whiny, and downright unhappy when we went to organized activities at the library (perhaps due to teething? I never knew.....). Then, I was devastated when I realized that starting in the fall, story time conflicted with our playgroup day. So, we only visited the library to play and check out books during the fall and the first part of winter.

This January, though, Vicki said that she thought Sonia would be mature enough to go to the story time for 2-3 year olds. I was skeptical, but this story time fit with our schedule-- plus, our good buddies, Max & Tracy and Ike & Emma, were going to participate as well. So, we tried it out. We've gone 4 times now, and Sonia loves it more and more each week. In fact, this week, Sonia got up the nerve to actually participate! When Miss Margie asked the kids to help point out a cat playing hide-and-seek on each page of a fun counting book, Sonia marched right up and started pointing out the "mow-mow". I was so excited that I ran and got the camera.


"Do you see the cat, Sonia?"


"Good job! You found the kitty cat!"



I'm so happy that Sonia is back at story time.... My mom took my siblings and me to the library all the time when we were growing up, and I am eternally grateful for my love of reading that she fostered by doing so. Sosini and I love to check out books (our current favorites are the llama books by Anna Dewdney and the dragon books by Dav Pilkey), visit the pet turtles, play with toys, and hang out with our friends. Thank you, Lisle Library, for being so awesome!

Blizzard 2011

Wow-- within a 24 hour period, Mother Nature dumped about 18 inches of snow on us. The wind blew it around a ton, and the resulting snow drifts were both dramatic and impressive. Andrew worked from home today, which is a good thing because there's no way we could have left the house before the plows came by around noon.

When we woke up this morning and came downstairs, we were transfixed by the amount of snow that we saw on the south side of our house:



But when we looked out the north side, it didn't look as bad.


Andrew took a break around lunchtime to shovel off our deck and stairs. While he was out there, the snow removal people came by to clear off the driveway.


Sonia and I stayed inside where it was warm and toasty, but we tried to keep Andrew company by watching him through the window.


After her nap, Sonia got all bundled up and went outside to check out the snow cave her daddy dug for her. She wasn't so sure about it, but I thought it was super-cool!


I put Sonia to work shoveling the very top of the driveway that the snow removal people didn't quite get.


My fingers hurt! (That's Andrew & Gonzo's favorite Happy Gilmore quote.)


Sonia thought this whole snow business was pretty darn cool! She played on the driveway in her saucer sled for a little while, but I didn't get a picture of it. As usual, Sosini was sad when I made her come in.... I think her internal thermostat is broken!

Dinner with "Emmy"

This past weekend, Sonia's future shoe shopping partner in crime, Emily, made the trek out to Lisle to have dinner with us. After an initial attack of shyness (which lasted about 5 minutes), Sonia went BONKERS showing off for Em. Girlfriend was running around in circles, giggling, jumping, smiling, and generally acting like a cuckoo bird.

Sonia happily posed while Emily took a quick picture of the wacko kiddo.


Oh, the draw of the iPhone.... Sonia just can't resist....


Sonia climbed into the glider and read "The Rats Who Lived in the Delicatessen" to us.


Then, Sonia gave us a fashion show by jamming a too-small hat on her head. Emily helped show Sosini the most flattering poses to strike when the paparazzi attack.


I know Sonia has a dumb expression on her face in this picture, but Emily looks so darn good that I had to include it anyway.


Sonia had a hard time pronouncing Emily's name, so Emily kindly let Sonia into the exclusive club (it's a small but elite group) of people who are allowed to call her "Emmy". Sosini was stingy with hugs and kisses until bedtime-- after Emily gave Sonia a hug and a smooch, we left the room.... then Sonia yelled out "Emmy!", asking for another goodnight kiss. She loves her Emmy!