Recent Acquisitions

As Sophie nears seventeen months, her vocabulary is building slowly. Here's the current inventory:

Mama: applies equally to her Mother and her baby doll
Baa Baa: bottle
Book: pronounced "Bok"
Hot: pronounced "ot"
Hat: pronounced "at"
Ball: any round object
Dada
Bye Bye: also means good-night
Hi
Uh Oh: applies to food dropped on the floor purposefully as well as accidents
Quack, quack: pronouced, "ack ack," meaning duck

Sophie and me on the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls

More Wheaton Pictures

The Wardrobe

Sophie and I are in Wheaton, Illinois, a picturesque suburb of Chicago, visiting my sister and her family in their new home. One of the attractions of Wheaton is the Wade Center, a museum and library devoted to the works of C.S. Lewis and his contemporaries. The main attraction of this attraction is that it houses a Wardrobe, which inspired THE Wardrobe in The Lion and the Witch and the, well, you know. They've hung fur coats inside, but when we pushed through these, there was no magical winter to be found. I suspect once Sophie is old enough to read the books and we return, that will all change.

Below Sophie searches through one of the drawers in C.S. Lewis's writing desk, looking for a lost manuscript of course.

Here she is hiding underneath the desk upon which Tolkein wrote The Lord of the Rings.

Don't say you weren't warned:

Milestones Missed and Miles to Go

Sophie started walking at 13 months (yes, two months ago).
She said her first real word around the same time: Ball
But don't worry, you haven't missed anything: she's still toddling around and saying Ball.
Baaaaaallll.
That's what it sounds like.
Morning, noon, and night.
Nothing but Baaaalll. Baaallll. Baaaaaaaaall.

She also enjoys taking objects out of one container and putting them into another container. Including herself.

Declaration of Independence

Yes, the price of gas has risen sky high, violence has escalated in Afghanistan, people are losing their homes due to the mortgage crisis, but you've been up at night wondering why Prairie Cate has remained mum for so long. Well gentle readers, it's summertime, time for playing outside until the fireflies light up the woods and filling up the kiddie pool with the garden hose, not time for sitting inside in front of the computer (so yes, basically, I've been lazy and apathetic).

But never fear, I could never desert you, when there are luscious baby pictures to post. We spent a very laid back fourth of July hiding inside away from the stifling high plains heat, then went to Old Fort Hays in the evening to listen to an Old Western duet on the prairie. We went home early, ate spaghettios for dinner and put the baby to bed. Then when it finally turned dark outside, we woke her up again and watched the local fireworks from our front porch.


Little bitty baby, great big sky.

Sophie at the Ritz

Sophie and I spent the past week in Sarasota, Florida, courtesy of Florida Studio Theatre. The theatre brought me down for a play reading and were gracious enough to make it possible for baby to come along as well. We had the weekend off and spent it poolside at the Ritz Carleton, which was a short walk from artist housing. Sophie loved being in the pool, although I had to keep a firm grasp on her, as she kept trying to swim away--an action that did not help to assuage my baby drowning phobia.

The adorable watermelon bathing suit is courtesy of Donno, of course, and I think it's pretty much to die for cute. I used to ponder the existence of God, the nature of art, as well as read a fair bit, but now, I admit, I live for swoon-inducing, adorable baby girl clothes. Yes, it's come to that.

City Mouse, Country Mouse

Sophie's weekend in New York was pretty magical, birthday party aside. She was lovely on the plane trip, despite a three hour drive to the airport and a two-legged itinerary. On Friday, we all woke up late, then lunched in Union Square on our way to Carl's favorite destination in all of Manhattan: The Strand (18 miles of books, for you non-New Yorkers). After the bookstore, we met Martha and Bryan for dinner at Penelope's in Grammercy Park, then I went to the Women's Project, baby in tow, while everybody else went to see Patrick Stewart in Macbeth on Broadway (I was a little jealous, I admit). That night, as Carl, Sophie and I slept in the same room, the bedroom window casting stripes of light and shadow across the bed, I thought how beautiful and fragile it all is: To sleep in the city with my love and my baby, while outside the taxi cabs flick their vacancy lights on and off again.

I returned to Hays to discover that my Mother, superwoman that she is, had planted a lovely flower garden in my front yard while taking care of Sophie. She adorned the front steps with charming planters filled with geraniums, which Sophie immediately tried to eat. It's hard to beat the South in the springtime, with all that luscious, burgeoning color: azaleas, daffodils, dogwoods, magnolias, tulips, you name it. Yet after a long, gray, treeless winter on the plains, the bright green fields and flowering redbud trees seem equally magnificent.