Spring 2014

Sofia is growing. Over the last two months she has become mobile, crawling as fast as possible to every new object that enters her field of vision. It's fun to watch. And it's also a lot of work. Gina and I constantly have to chase her around the apartment, park, office, everywhere in a continual effort to make sure she doesn't get into trouble. The women who work at her daycare tell us almost everyday that Sofia is an unusually active and inquisitive baby. We have also heard she prefers to play with the older kids, is very independent, and can occasionally steal toys from the kids her age.

In addition to crawling Sofia has more recently turned her attention to learning how to walk. She can stand now and has just begun to take her first few steps. This skill is a bit riskier to learn than crawling and we have had our fair share of crashes, but after a bit of a cry Sofia seems to forget her previous fall and is back up and trying again.

Finally, just today we took her to the pool for the first time. I don't think she has decided yet whether she liked being afloat or not. The entire time we were in the pool she mostly just appeared confused and somewhere between distraught and displeased. But she didn't flip out either so I consider the experience a success.

In non Sofia-related news everything is going well. Gina's research is progressing and seems to be moving steadily forward. It looks like I might be able to continue working for our lab group beyond this September which is exciting. Additionally I am writing a joint proposal to try and secure funding to study the feasibility of amending soil with source separated urine in an urban agricultural cooperative in Cape Town, SA. My hope is to become a leading expert on pee pee.

And the pictures: