For the first time this year, we had a regular "no one is sick and in need to special attention" Saturday. Little Miss Sophie is recovering from a bit of a cough but nothing we had to stop the clocks for. She did give us a treat by sleeping in till 9am though (!!!) which meant we all got some good rest and woke up all peppy and happy :)
9.30: After rolling around the bed and reading with Sophie a little, we all finally trooped into the bathroom and got ourselves washed up for the morning. For Sophie, this means making sure that she "brushes" both our teeth with her toothbrush before brushing her own teeth. And saying "morning!" to the
two monsters on our bathroom door. It's her morning ritual- go figure.
9.45: Breakfast for us is buttered kaya toast, thanks to the
Ya-Kun kaya my parents brought over for us over the holidays. Sophie ate some oatmeal. One day, she will out-grow her allergies and we will share with her the comforting goodness that is kaya.
10.30: We all get changed and bundled up for a grocery run. Between all the yummy food my mom made and froze and the Omaha Steak's meat that both Jude and my aunt sent us as holiday gifts, we haven't actually had to do much shopping except for fruit and veggies. But our lunchies (quick and easy items for lunch) were running on low supply and we had to stock up on pantry staples like pasta and broth anyway, so it was off to Trader Joe's. No more balloons for Sophie there (they stopped their balloon-giving policy) but she had a usual grapefruit to hug and gnaw on so she was a happy camper. And she kept herself busy by waving and saying hi to complete strangers.
12.00: We drop Jude off at school so he can clock in some work for the day. Sophie and I head home for lunch (fish porridge for her and pasta salad for me) after which we spend some quality time with her blocks. The architectural project for today- a tall tower built entirely of just the square pieces. Not structurally the most sound but at least now I know she knows the difference between squares and rectangles. Sophie was also in a "dancey" mood so we put on some Pomplamoose and danced to their holiday songs. Sophie loves "Jingle Bells" in particular (she calls it "Jindle Bell") and I had to put it on repeat for at least 20 minutes.
1.30: Nap-time for Sophie. I catch up on my email, read the news, watched an old episode of Grey's Anatomy (don't ask...), and started planning for class for next week.
3.45: Had to wake Sophie up from her nap because we were meeting Jude downtown soon. Recovering from a cough is hard work but I didn't want her nap to interfere with her night sleep. She roused the moment I opened her door so she was probably close to waking up on her own anyway.
4.30: We met Jude downtown to run some errands- picked up some pants that needed alteration, popped into Van Boven to check out their sale (where Jude scored a nice jacket and a wrinkle-free shirt, and where the sales guys were rather smitten with Sophie and gave her free reign of running around the store), and let Sophie run around the children's section at Borders which basically meant her meandering around the shelves, randomly pulling out books she wants us to read to her, grabbing whatever Elmo product that's within her reach, and alternating between yelling "running!" or "coming!" whenever she sees a long stretch of uninterrupted floor space for her to blaze through. Sometimes, I feel like I am unleashing a mini tornado through a prairie.
6.00: It was getting cold and dark and we were hungry so we decided on some
Tomukun ramen for dinner to warm ourselves up. We were planning on having dinner out anyway so I had packed Sophie some cherry tomatoes and chicken nuggets. We ordered her a bowl of rice and she was all set. Jude and I both got the duck ramen and dinner was us taking turns to eat while rolling the rice into little rice balls for Sophie. She likes feeding herself and having little morsels of food to work with keeps her occupied.
7.30: We get home in time to Skype with both Jude's and my family before everyone had to go to church (it was Sunday morning in Singapore). Sophie has come to anticipate these Skype conversations and will say "Yiyi" (what she calls my sisters) once she sees the Skype icon popping up.
8.30: It's the weekend so Sophie gets to go to bed a little later. Bedtime is usually between 7.30 and 8.00 on a school night. Tonight, Sophie was really interested in the
Charley Harper ABC book that we checked out from the library. Sophie knows his art from his
123 book that my friend Teresa gifted us with and the
Peekaboo Forest app on the iPad and so Sophie had fun identifying the animals in the ABC book even though his stylized take on animal illustrations isn't the most easily recognizable.
The thing about having an early(ish) sleeper is that Jude and I get the rest of the night to ourselves, mostly to do work. Or on Wednesday nights, Top Chef. But today, we actually squeezed in some laundry-folding, which is amazing considering we only did the laundry two days ago and we've once let the folding part wait almost an entire week...
As I'm typing this, I can hear Sophie coughing a little here and there. But I'm hoping it will all clear up tomorrow.
Then we'll see what Sunday will bring :)
The little imp in between bouts of dancing this afternoon.
