The first word she ever wrote was Hi. This was appropriate. For the first two months of her life her father and I could say nothing but 'Hi' to her. Her second word was something like HIPpo. And then after that it's been arrangements of the same. Which result in words like ihpoip. And hpippo. Which we pronounce for her so we can all bust out in laughter.

We've put together a poster of sorts for the trip to Chicago. One thing we'd like to do, weather permitting, is visit the zoo (translation=free). We were very proud when Sophs saw the word on our makeshift poster and said "HEY, I know THAT one. Z-O-O . ZOO!!!!" Emphasis hers.

While watching a PBS cartoon recently I (re)learned the concept of putting different first letters with the same sounding second part. Like zoo, too, and well, poo. So I say to Sophie, if you put a P in front of OO, what do you get? What does p say? She obliges. What does o, o say? She obliges again. The three of us put it together and Sophie busts a gut. We do to.

The next thing we know she's getting a fresh sheet of paper on the easel, and in two inch letters writes: