The Mind of Sophie

Since Sophie was old enough to pick things up and play with them, she's been lining them up. The first time I realized there was an order to it, she was about a year and a half old. She had connected a tower of large square Lego blocks in a color pattern-- red, red, blue, blue, yellow, yellow, green, green, black, red, blue, yellow, green, black. It freaked me out a little bit a first, but now we're all pretty used to it around here. Here are some examples of her organizational abilities:


Her dollhouse furniture in a row.


These are her play dishes all lined up. Notice how she has sorted them by color and size. Also, each pair of colored dishes has the same kind of plastic cookie or muffin on them. Also note the silverware at the end of the line, also arranged according to color.


This is her magnetic alphabet on the fridge. Originally I had it in alphabetical order going in horizontal rows, but she arranged them in color order in one long vertical row.
These are just a few examples. She lines up everything. I put the Nativity out on the coffee table where she could play with it (it's not breakable). The first thing she did was line up the animals according to size.

She is very much a creature of habit. Even when she was an infant, she craved a schedule. I think routines are comforting to her. We established a bedtime routine for her when she was a baby, and it hasn't really changed all that much over the years. The good thing about it is that (unless she's sick), bedtime is a peaceful process-- once the bedtime routine has started, she goes to bed without any struggle.

In other news, Sophie has discovered How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the cartoon one). I put it in on Sunday night while we were putting lights on the tree to occupy her, and we have watched it multiple times each day since. When the Grinch comes on she gasps and says, "Who's that? It's the GRINCH!"