Sophie's World

8:00 PM: We're really flattered to learn that there are actually people out there who have some interest in reading about us on a daily basis! We'll make an effort to keep our updates regular, but you know how life can be! Either we're really busy or there's nothing to report but the most mundane details of our lives, but I suppose reading about our daily activities is better than wondering if we're not posting because something bad is going on.

Sophie had another rough morning at daycare. She slept in this morning (and ended up in bed with us last night), and she seemed fine until it was time to go. When we got there, she clung tenaciously to my leg again. Her teacher reported that she stopped crying soon after I left, but that doesn't make it any easier to listen to her scream as I linger outside the door.

Today, we met with a local attorney to discuss estate planning. It was a relief to have a plan for documents we need to have and decisions we need to make. It's also nice to be making progress on our New Year's resolution from *last year*. (This year's resolution is to establish some order out of the chaos of our stuff that's in the building out back).

We had another battle over where we would eat dinner tonight. Randall and I each picked up a girl (because he had to come home after dinner to work while I took the girls to dance class), and we had decided on a particular restaurant (a local buffet--Ernie's). I had Sophie, who was fine with our choice, and we got there first and waited inside for Randall and Elisabeth. Not long after we arrived, I got a call from Randall, who said that Elisabeth wanted to go somewhere else (a different buffet--Pizza Hut). As I listened to Elisabeth cry, I convinced Sophie to go to Pizza Hut. When I saw that Elisabeth's first trip to the buffet consisted of a plateful of ranch dressing, a packet of crackers, and exactly one slice of cucumber (which, I might add, she could have gotten at ANY buffet!), I let her know how unhappy I was with her insistence that we change our plans. She eventually ate some pizza too (but not much), and Sophie ended up discovering raisins. After I told her some of the health benefits of raisins (while Randall and Elisabeth were refilling their plates), she went on to announce quite loudly that "raisins will make me poop!" when they returned to the table.

Sophie refused to join her dance class for the first 10 minutes or so, but I made her sit in the classroom and watch (usually she just joins in after a while, but tonight she was more stubborn). At some point, she started running back and forth along the wall, and the other little girls were clearly thinking of joining her, so I opened the door and told her she had to sit still or join the class. Her first suggestion was that she would walk instead of running, but I insisted on sitting still or joining the class. She joined the class and had a great time. There was a new little girl (Madi) who joined the class last week, and her mom told me tonight that Madi talked all week about going to dance class with "Sopie" and wanted to know why she didn't have any hair. I guess she made quite an impression!