Living in Babble-on

Eleven whole months of Sofia (and Ella) to try to report on, hmmm... So we'll start with Sofia's fantastic babbling skills, hence the clever title of this post!

At eleven months Sofia is a masterful babbler, right on track with all babies, I'm sure, but we, of course, think she is masterfully smart : ) She has been saying 'dada' and 'mama' for some time now, but she seems to finally be figuring out which is which. She is currently mastering 'hi', which she loves to NOT say when you ask her to (in front of a friend, for example), and loves to say on and on repeatedly in the dark of her bedroom after we have put her to sleep - even the thick Italian stone walls do not stop that sweet little voice, I can hear her all the way down the hall as I type on the computer...

She is also currently working on her fabulous princess wave, but is still much better at her chubby little baby finger point, which she has been doing for at least a couple months. I don't know what it is about that little finger, and her sister must have done it too, but it is my favorite thing, especially if she points AT me and says 'mama' - hooray! (most of the time she points at a lot of who-knows-what and says a bunch of baby gobbledy gook - still pretty much the cutest thing ever).

So what else can I say? Eleven months has flown by, right? That's what everyone says, and it definitely goes fast, but I think we have paused to enjoy each stage, month, week and day with Sofia, just as we did with Ella, at least I know we've tried. The first 6 months seemed slower than the last five, maybe because all that early baby stuff (laying around, staring at the ceiling, eating, sleeping) is kind of tedius and slow. I definitely enjoyed just holding and cuddling her, probably more than I did with Ella because I wasn't worrying if I was doing it all right. I've been telling everyone I know who has only one kid to DEFINITELY have more, because it has been just so sweet and wonderful having a second. I mean, yes, I'm tired and sometimes pulled too many different ways, but I had NO idea how much I loved having a baby until I got to do it again, it has been a real gift...

Lately, I definitely feel busy and pulled a lot of different directions, probably because Sofia is SO mobile now. She's been crawling since the fall but now she really enjoys some serious playtime - aka, mommy can NOT leave her for more than a few seconds because she goes in the kitchen, opens up the cabinets and takes out all the applesauce containers!!! She is so much more active than big sister Ella was at this stage. Ella was a quiet studier, liked to really examine all the pages of her books, pieces of her toys, etc., all while sweetly sucking on her pacifier. Conversely, Sofia enjoys grabbing huge handfulls of toys out of the toy basket without barely a glance, pulling all the books off the bookshelf, all while giving each thing she has grabbed a quick slobbery chew because she is SO not interested in using a pacifier... you have no idea how many hours you can kill wiping baby saliva off of things : )

Life seems to be a little bit in fast-forward mode right now, we know we will be leaving Italy in a few short months to move back to the states so everything we do seems to be on some sort of count-down (i.e., better NOT buy that huge pack of toilet paper, we might not use it up in time!). But we're still making time for walks down to the gelato store so I'm still enjoying every moment with my girls. Well, the moment right now is up as I can hear someone's sweet little cries through these thick stone walls and I can't wait to go scoop her up and give her a cuddle...