Sophie in the City

This past weekend we took Sophie for a weekend in the big city to join friends of ours for the Big Apple BBQ Block Party. It was a great weekend and really gave me a lot of good feelings about our upcoming vacation because Sophie handled all the disruption and new environments with grace and panache. She took to her hotel room like she'd be staying in one for years. She slept fine even despite later bedtimes and weird naps. She napped in the stroller in the middle of Times Square. She had a blast playing in Madison Square Park and hanging out with our friends and especially their son, Will and all his cool toys. She did great eating in public restaurants. She charmed random strangers young and old. It was a super time all around. And, then she got sick. I guess all those random strangers make for a pretty germy environment and poor kid started to sound a little stuffy and then had a full-blown cold upon waking up yesterday. She has a low-grade fever and runny nose and eyes but she's eating good and sleeping fine so I'm grateful that it seems to just be a summer cold. Summer colds are total bummers but they are much better than winter colds - no doubt about it.

In other news we are getting pretty darn excited for our big vacation in Ocean City, NJ coming up. Hopefully the weather will be good (um, please don't rain for two weeks... PLEASE!!) and even if it's not we'll still enjoy the first week of SnedikerOxenfordPalooza that is sure to ensue and the second week of visiting with other friends and family. Two weeks. Do you believe it? We are practically jumping out of our skins with anticipation.

We had a nice visit with Nanny and Poppy and Cousins Caely, Mikey and Jessica last week. We also had a couple of short but nice visits with Dee Ree and Pop Pop. Grandma Kathy sent another wonderful care package (thank you Grandma Kathy!!) with neat shoes and homemade barrettes in it.

Sophie's saying lots of new words it seems. On Sunday night we had a riotous time listening to her say "keys" except it sounded more like "KEEYSSTH?" Tonight she said "kids" or it could have been "keys' - not sure. She is also saying "please" more which just makes me melt in a million little puddles of mommy-love.

We've been trying a new bedtime routine which has been working pretty well. Jim has been handling the actual putting to bed and any nighttime wake-ups and he's got quite the system down. Unfortunately, when she gets a cold all bets are off and old ways creep back pretty quickly but we were having such success with the new routine for a while there that I just know it will work again when she is back to her normal not sick self. And, yes, Jim is a total rock-star daddy, isn't he?