the Sophie show

Every Wednesday, Travis has speech therapy in the afternoons. Since I'm off Wednesdays, I round up the whole brood and we all travel to the hospital for his 45-min appointment. Noah and Sophie and I wait in the waiting room, and I generally try to bring a few things along for them to do... the Glodoodle (always a big hit, in fact that toy is now essentially permanently reserved for speech appointments), a magazine or two, the iPod Touch, etc. There's a few sad little toys in the waiting room, and a coloring book or two, really a pitiful setup for a pediatric therapy waiting room in a brand-new, state-of-the-art hospital. But I digress.

As Sophie gets older, more mobile, and more aware of her ability to charm anything with a heartbeat, she is completely disinterested in my pathetic attempts to distract her. She disdainfully mocks me with a look that says, 'Really Mom, you think I want to look at that silly shapes puzzle again? When there's people here to love on me? PLEASE." Then she trots off to some poor unsuspecting stranger in the waiting room and insists that they adore her. And, pretty much without fail, they do.

She has a remarkably effective technique. Her first step is to silently make her way to her next "mark", stand a few feet back, and just watch. Generally they are otherwise engaged and don't at first notice. They might be flipping through a magazine, talking on the cell phone, checking their calendar.

She waits patiently until they glance in her direction. Then she breaks into a huge grin, complete with crinkly nose and snorty giggle. Invariably she gets at least a smile in response....essentially only stone-cold heartless jerks and/or blind people can resist her.

Once she gets that smile, she's convinced she has won them over, toddles her way over to them and tries to make conversation. Sometimes she tries to get them to pick her up so she can snuggle on their lap. Her next favorite thing to do is to bring them 'presents'.

Today, for instance, she brought three coloring books and her stuffed leopard to a very friendly lady and her pre-teen son. When they left, (after nearly following them out of the room to their appointment), she turned her eye to a quiet, unassuming gentleman and his teenage son who were paying no attention to her. She deposited the leopard, the shapes puzzle, and Travis's sunglasses on said gentleman's lap.

Needless to say, most of my time at speech appointments is spent following Sophie around the room, picking up stray items she has left with strangers, and apologizing if she's bothered them. (She doesn't bother anybody though. Everyone loves her. Even "non-kid" people love her.... although thankfully, we mostly only run into "kid" people in the pediatric therapy office.)

I thought Noah was a charmer. This one is gonna be trouble.