Sophia's in Charge

Since its been such long time between posts, I thought I would spend some time catching you up on Sophia. She may not be two yet, but Erika and I are already experience the highs and lows of the terrible twos.
Sophia's becoming a lot more independent. She insists on doing most task herself by proclaiming, "No, Sisi do it!" (BTW, she has also cutely named herself Sisi - pronounced see-see). It is common to hear this exclamation when we are eating dinner, putting her in the car seat, brushing her teeth, folding the laundry, going up the steps, putting on her coat ... you get the picture.
Sophia is also in the process of potty training. We are happy to say she is consistently using the potty a couple of times a day, mostly if we ask her if she has to go. Her favorite part is washing her hands afterwards. We bought her a little step stool that helps her get up to the sink. We aren't done until Sophia is allowed to turn off the water. With luck, she will be out of diapers by her birthday.
One milestone we could have waited longer to reach is keeping her in her crib. Recently Sophia figured out how to climb out. My first reaction was pride, but that was quickly replaced by fear when I remembered how steep our steps are. We are now very careful to always lock the gate at her bedroom door, so that we can at least keep her contained in her room. Today, she decided that she wasn't ready for a nap, so she climbed out and started playing with her toys. I checked on her and was satisfied that she was OK. Fifteen minutes later I was not as happy. She had dumped out half of her dresser, scattered her barrettes across the carpet, and most frustratingly smeared baby oil on her hands, face and hair. After a long clean up, I finally coaxed her into taking a nap only after bribing her with chocolate milk.
On the topic of sleeping, Sophia has recently stretched her bedtime to 10pm. In fact, occasionally, we will hear her babbling in her bed as late as 11. Personally, I like having her up later, so I can spend more time with her. It wasn't too long ago that she went to bed around 7pm. Erika is more mixed. By 8pm she is ready for some down time, especially since Sophia is still waking up around 7am. The upside for Er is that Sophia is now taking monster naps in the afternoon, which gives Er a lot of time to get some work done and/or take a much needed nap.

And Erika needs her rest. We recently found out that we are expecting another little one early in August. Sophia doesn't realize it yet, but she is about to get some company.