Call of the Sophie

Every natural environment has it's own sounds. When in the forest, one can hear the wind blowing through the leaves, the sound of running water and some squirrels arguing over an acorn. The same goes for my house. On an average day you can hear the pitter-patter of running feet, the hum of a washing machine and the occasional fight over a toy. By far the most amusing sound lately is the call of Sophie. It's a shrill high-pitched cry that cuts through all other noise and is expressed as a sign of happiness or a way of getting mommy’s attention. Sophie does it so much that everyone has started imitating it for kicks. The other day Sophie started first, Nicholas heard it from downstairs and replied. Sophie, who is becoming more aware of her environment every day, responded with a call of her own. Just for fun I joined into the mix with an imitation call. We continued for a few rounds just for the fun of it. I think Juliette was the first to imitate the call but this was the first time Sophie recognized that we were imitating her and returned the call. Sure it's a bit piercing and can cause headaches within a one mile radius but in a house with three kids under 6 years of age it's great fun. Sophie has also been sitting up by herself and jumping herself silly in the jolly jumper. The jumper has been a huge hit with princess Sophie. She can (and has) jump for over an hour. Yes, that's right, how many of us could keep jumping up and down for over an hour without getting sick. A 10 year old was over the other day and commented that they should make one for older kids. I guess for older kids you'd have to get a trampoline (a.k.a. the limb breaker) or perhaps the wire apparatus used on movie sets like the Matrix.

Nicholas is our night owl. He almost never goes to bed when we put him down and instead stays up in his room playing and reading books. Yesterday he made the mistake of turning off some Christmas lights instead of sleeping. Mom read him the riot act and he cried himself to sleep. My advice to Nicholas is to not do anything to draw too much attention to yourself and we'll let you do almost whatever you want when you're supposed to be sleeping. Turning off the Christmas lights which go from the top of the stairs to the main floor is not only drawing attention to the fact that your up and about but that you are also playing with electric outlets.

Juliette is such a big girl that I forget she's only 5. Everyone one thinks she's 7 or 8 including the clothes she wears. We played the "how high can you jump" game and she was able to reach a set of keys that was dangled over 6 ft above the ground. I don't know who loves that game more, the kids or me but it's a cheap way to kill an hour. Of course she reminds us all she's only 5 whenever we try to teach her simple math or when she hurts herself. A minor injury can cause her to cry and scream for 20 minutes plus. I guess she's not a big fan of pain and I don't blame her, neither am I.

Everyone is very ready and excited for Christmas…