Words Sophie can say:

 
SOPHISH ENGLISH CHINESE

9 months:

 
ma-ma mommy
da-da daddy
nai-nai granny (should be paternal) lao-lao and nai-nai
urd bird
uhv dove

10 months:

`no-no-no' is also the word for electric sockets, lamp cords, stereo knobs and many other fascinating things around the house. I point at them and say `no-no-no', just the way grownups and my big sister do.
 
banana banana (#1 favorite)
no-no-no no!
mo more
doh door
mo-mo bread mo-mo (Szechuan dialect)
coh crow

11 months:

I can walk now. For weeks I would walk only holding furniture or someone's hand. Then I let go and walked all the way across the room first time. I can walk in straight lines forever (or until I see something interesting to stop and study), but turning is still kind of hard, so I sit down, scoot around on my bottom, get up, and walk in the new direction.
 
go-go dog (doggie) gou(3)
niao-niao bird (birdie) niao(3)
Isabuh, Isabelle Isabelle
daddy daddy
mommy mommy
do-do little thing

12 months:

I can bend over and pick things up without falling down, and love to go up and down stairs. I am a very determined walker. I can walk 1/3 mile without being picked up. I love music, especially the music cube I got for my first birthday. This is because I can turn it on and off myself by whacking it.  Big people yanked me away when I whacked the stereo. I conduct the music in good time, rock back and forth, and do little dances. I understand lots of things: `get your shoes', `get mommy's shoes', `go find Isabelle', `are you sleepy?'  I have very long conversations with streams of words running out for minutes at a time, and lots of gestures, but the dumb adults only understand a few words. They do understand the gestures, though. I love all kinds of lights, especially flashing lights, which I indicate by opening and closing my fist -even if someone just says "flash".
 
 
jie-jie big sister
feiji airplane
I love ooMommy I love you Mommy
shoe shoe
off take off
beepee pee
boppy potty
ma ant ma(2)yi(3)
dianhua telephone dian(4)hua(4)
hello hello (what you say on phone)
diandung electric light dian(4)deng(1)
da hit (v) da(3)
Soapie Sophie (me!)
bye-bye bye-bye
suejiao sleep shui(4)jiao(4)
rawbey strawberry
buboo bubble
jiao-jiao foot jiao(3)
mao hat mao(4)zi
Bibby Tibby (neighbor's dog)
anboo walk san(4)bu(4)

21 months:

I have learned to say "No" and "Don't want it."  But I can't say "yes".

23 months:

I've finally learned to say "Yes." (and "Sure, fine."). And "Sophie" has become "I" or "me" and "Daddy" has become "you" (e.g. instead of "Daddy watch Fophie now", I now say "You sit down there and watch me dance.")

24 months:

On my 2-year birthday, I announced I would use the potty from that day on, and not wear diapers anymore.  I have kept my promise, too.
I learned last week to do a somersault. This week I found a baby rat hiding in a flower bed. I was very proud of finding it, and fed it strawberries, and had to be dissuaded from picking it up and patting it. So I asked Daddy "I can jump.  I can dance ballet. I can play Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do. I can do somsalt. I can find little rat hiding.  I am big girl.  So can I go to school now. Please? Daddy?"
I also know how to pull heartstrings. The day after Daddy returned from a meeting in Washington DC: "Daddy go away one, two, three, four days. Maybe you don't go to work today? You stay and play with me, please?"
My favorite book is Beatrix Potter's The Fierce Bad Rabbit. I can find the letters "S" for Sophie, "I" for Isabelle, "D" for Daddy, "R" for Rabbit in all books. If my fierce bad lao-lao tries to help me take off my clothes at bath time, I stamp my feet and say "I do it all by myself, " and do so. My parents know better than to try to help me do anything.

25 months:

When my sister was getting ready for school, I made myself a burrito just like hers, got a lunch bag, my swimsuit and my backpack, packed it all up, and waited by the back door. I wouldn't let any one go out without me, insisting "I go to school too. I made lunch, see? I maybe be scared at school, but only little bit. I won't cry. So you take me to school, ok?"

28 months:

I have started school (daycare) now, and it is scarier than I thought.  I cried all day for 2 weeks, and wouldn't eat or sleep there.  I insisted I wanted to go to Isabelle's school instead. Now I will eat and sleep a little bit, and only cry some of the day.  I am working on role-playing at home to get used to it.  I tell Daddy that I am Mommy, and I have to go to work.  I tell Daddy "You are a big boy. Don't cry, I will be back soon, and Retha (my favorite teacher, played at home by my big sister Isabelle) will hold you.  If you are brave and only cry a little bit, I will give you a chocolate lollipop (chocolate is good, lollipops are good, so chocolate lollipops must be even better) when we go home. Now I have to go to work. Bye." Then I go hide around the corner for a while, and then come back with a giant grin, and tell Daddy that "Mommy is here now.  Were you a brave boy?" Then we repeat this game about 20 times until Isabelle gets tired of playing Retha.  For some reason I feel safest at school with people who have very dark skin: I only allow those teachers to hold me, and only play with those children. When Retha was on vacation and I was inconsolable, I startled the mother of a kid in another class who was walking past by screaming through my tears "I want that black lady to hold me."

I can write some of the letters now (S, O, I, C are pretty reliably realistic), and I like to draw faces, make tiny paper cutouts, glue stuff to make collages, and make fancy patterns with refrigerator magnets. My favorite book now is "Polar Express".  "Santa will bring me lots of candy? Yes?"

32 months:

School is much better now.  Now I whine on Saturday because there is no school, and ask Mommy and Daddy to see if maybe the teachers and my friend Katherine wouldn't like to go to school on Saturday too.  I know the lyrics to a great many children's songs, and make everyone sing along with me at dinner-time "shows". I can draw people, with heads, faces (complete with eyebrows, which are very important to me for some reason. I correct other people's drawings if they leave them out), hair, bodies, arms, legs and 5 carefully counted fingers on each hand.

I am getting good with numbers.  I can hold up the right number of fingers for 1-5, and do calculations involving important things like candy and crackers.  "There are 6 crackers left. If I give one to Isabelle and one to Daddy, then I can eat four."  Or, looking at a picture book about a train: "There are 8 cars on that train. One caboose, three flat cars, three box cars and one tender. [holding up 4 fingers on each hand] Eight cars."  I also started to count the slats on a fence, and then realized I hadn't started at the beginning, so I ran all the way back to the start of the fence, and started counting: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.
But then I stopped and got a very surprised look on my face: there were lots more slats to count, but I had run out of  numbers. So I continued "six, two, A, B, C..." My parents had better teach me what comes after 10 soon. [2 weeks later: all better now: "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, tenteen, eleventeen, twelveteen..." you get the pattern, right?]

I am also getting tricky. Daddy: "I have to go take a shower now." Sophie: "No, you play with me." Daddy: "But if I don't take a shower I will be all stinky and then Mommy won't kiss me." Sophie: "MOMMY!"  Mommy comes. Sophie says "Mommy, give Daddy a big kiss."  Mommy does. Sophie: "See, Daddy, Mommy kissed you, so you don't need a shower. You can play with me now."

I seem to listen very carefully to all conversations, and remember bits forever.  Sophie: "Daddy, will you read me a story, please?"   Daddy: "Just a minute Sophie, let Daddy finish his supper."  Sophie: "Daddy, are you aware of the vital importance of reading to your child?" Stunned silence ensues. Mommy and Daddy: "Sophie, where did you hear somebody say that?"

Daddy: "Sophie, look at the pretty roses."  Sophie: "They aren't pretty, they are exceptionally beautiful."

Sophie is sitting in the grass at Caltech, writing careful notes in her notebook about what her imaginary friends Allie et al are doing (the notes, to the unitiated, look like neat line after line of cursive mmmmmm's, but to Sophie they are long stories).  Lady walks up: "Oh, how cute. Does she know how to write?" Daddy: "Well, she is practicing."  Lady walks away. Sophie "Daddy, do you know how to write?"

4 years, 5 months:

Sophie, sitting in the kitchen eating a snack: "Daddy, why are there always more days? Why isn't there a last day like there is a last piece of pie? " If Daddy figures out the answer to that one, he might get a Gruber or Nobel prize.
Here is another one "Daddy, do all animals breathe and eat food down the same tube like we do? If they didn't, they wouldn't have to worry about choking. Wouldn't that be better?"

I can read and write three-letter words and all the numbers now. I like to do math homework while Isabelle does hers. She does problems like 472 x 84=?, while I do problems like 4 + 5 + 1=?

4 years, 7 months:

Sophie races to make Mommy a snack for Mommy's all night proposal-writing session. Mommy says Sophie is a sweet girl for taking care of Mommy. Sophie replies "Yes, I'm sweet now. But when I get older I will be nicer to my friends and nastier to my parents. " My best friends are Amanda and Adele, and sometimes Katherine and Lily. I have finally started piano with Miss Stacy, just like my big sister. I also do ballet, gymnastics and ice-skating.

5 years, 1 month:

Words of wisdom from Sophie: " Princesses had servants. Having a servant is kind of like having a Mom and Dad, except you are grown up. Servants cook and clean and drive you around."

5 years, 4 months:

Sophie is always terribly jealous of all the things her 9-yr old big sister can do that she can't. Conversation in car. "How old will I be when Isabelle is a teenager?" Dad: "Nine, just like Isabelle is now." Sophie: " That's not fair. She's always older than me. How about when she stops being a teenager, how old will I be?" Dad: "Sixteen. " Silence for 5 minutes of careful calculation. Sophie: "When Isabelle is 90 I'll be only 86. She'll probably be older and sicker than me, and then she'll be jealous and wish she were younger like me, right? That will be fair then."