I am currently alone with Sophie for several days while Soenke is in Japan. Brigitte (our fabulous nanny and friend) took pity on me and cooked enough food for us to last the weekend. Antje (my mother-in-law) even came to babysit so that I could go out to dinner with a client. In spite of that, I am wiped out and in awe of full-time moms who have no help. As much fun as we had this weekend, Sophie is simply under my feet from dawn to dusk, and barely gives me a moment to even go to the bathroom.

Now, that’s not the funny part. I’m getting there.

So, I generally try to avoid encouraging behavior that we’d prefer Sophie to omit from her repertoire. This includes not laughing at things we don’t want her to do. I admit that I can be a complete failure at this approach when she tosses…. no, HURLS… rejected food from her high chair tray (do ALL babies do that?!). Before I can get my hand up to block, grapes are hitting the wall and the sippy cup is ricocheting off the window. But, you see, it’s not a predictable behavior. Sometimes the sippy cup receives acclaim, and grapes can’t get in her mouth fast enough. We just never know when food will go airborne (in spite of all of our stern “nein nein neins!”).

This morning, Sophie tried something new. She had eaten her fill of cheddar cheese, and I could see that she was emphatically about to dump the remaining pieces on the floor. So my hand came up on the left side of her tray to catch the rejects, and without missing a beat, Sophie joyfully reversed directions in mid-hurl and dumped the cheese off the OTHER side of her tray, well out of my reach (all with a big, happy chortle). I had never seen her do that, and I have to admit…. I laughed really hard. (If you are a parent, you will KNOW how unhelpful that is!).

Another undesirable behavior that has recently cropped up is the sticking of her index finger up her nose. As often as I pull the finger out of her nose with a firm “no!”, she laughs and shoves it back up farther. I have just about given up on this. After I cleaned up breakfast this morning, I went looking for my mischievious daughter, and found her in the guest room. She was sitting in her favorite position, which is directly in front of our mirrored wardrobe, where she admires herself and practices different facial expressions. Today she turned to look at me as I walked in the room, and she had an index finger shoved up each nostril. Based on the big grin on her face, I could only conclude that she was extremely proud of this accomplishment. My bursting into wild laughter did not help the situation.

So this is apparently what 15-month-olds do. I simply enjoy the ride and hope that Soenke is a tougher authority figure than I.

And here we have a few Sophie videos for Grandma & Grandpa. In the first, I simply wanted to show how well she is standing (and also how she can inform us what various animals say… too bad she responds better to German than English… really, I’m working on that). In the second, she shows us her tower-building skills and waves “bye bye” at the end.

Cute photo to start: