Ever since Sophia started walking something has looked vaguely familiar about it. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until this morning when I was watching her in my coffeeless stupor. She walks, then runs, then walks again, all while flailing her arms around in random motions. All this while trying to move forward in a straight line, but bouncing off the left wal then the right and so on and so on. She is doing her impression of Johnny Depp doing an impression of Captain Jack Sparrow doing an impression of Keith Richards. She hasn't even seen the Pirates of the Carribean movies yet, but maybe she go it through osmosis while invitro. It is the most perfect impression of the walk I have ever seen. It is brilliant.
Additionally, she is starting to string two words together to form simple sentences. When Margaret leaves us for work in the mornings, she always tells each of us goodbye, then as she is walking down the stairs to leave she will shout back "Bye guys, see you later." so now when Sophia is saying good-bye to anything it is "Bye guys." Whether it is good bye to one person or good bye to the television set, it's "Bye guys." Even at the end of her favorite TV programs she says, "Bye guys". Same goes for when we leave the house, she repeats the phrase to the cats and dogs. The drive thru dude at McDonalds, same thing goes. So don't be offended if your a gal and not a guy and she says, "Bye guys" either when she is leaving you or thinks it is time we were on our way, it's just her way of saying good-bye.
Yesterday it was a BEAUTIFUL day along the Wasatch Front. The thermometer here at our home said it got up to 72ºF. We decided to take Sophia to the Hogle Zoo down in Salt Lake by the University of Utah. She spent about 20% of the time in her stroller and 80% of her time running around like a drunken pirate. She even insisted on climing up the steep hills all by her self. It was a good activity for her since it wore her out and helped to make up for the change to daylight savings time. Her Grandma LaNan and Auntie McCall came with us too. It is aq good thing we had all four of us to keep tabs on the little stinker. She was always insisting we go the opposite direction than we needed to go, so one of us would lead the way and the other two would walk by her side and the fourth would bring up the rear to make sure she was not turning around and bolting the other way. When we would leave one area of animals she would tell them "Bye guys", and saunter off to see what was next. She really liked seeing our four Amur Tigers, and she loved the Carrousel and wanted to do that part of the zoo a second time. The poor little sweet-cakes also got bit by a bee while we were eating lunch. Atleast it wasn't a sting. At the end of the zoo-fari experience, Grandma watched Sophia while Margaret and I were picking out a treat for her from the gift shop. Sophia finally warmed up to the "floating marble world globe" fountain and got soaked. She was very cute about it and wanted to go do it again but we didn't have enough dry clothes for her to do it a second time. We wound up the trip to the zoo with a train ride, then we walked back to the car, and she was a little like a Captian Jack Sparrow getting to the car, but very tired by the time we got there. All in all, it was a good family day (except we didn't have Ethan), and we were all exhausted and ready for the day to be over. Thanks Grandma for going with and for everything and thanks Auntie Cally for coming with.
