Everyone thinks their kids are cute. Sophia just seemed to be in rare form Sunday morning.
As background, you need to know that “Ellie” is Sophia’s most treasured posession. Ellie is a Carter’s pink, elephant plush toy. (Get it, “Ellie”?) Once we realized how much she loved this toy, we started hunting for a duplicate. We called multiple Targets in multiple states. (Really.) No dice. We wanted insurance should something happen to Ellie. Our solution was Paco (the Pachyderm). You can see a pic of them side by side. Alas, what we got was a daughter who now needed two elephants to go to sleep.

Sophia giving Alexander an unprompted hug
Well, last week Mommy Michele texted Daddy Dave cuz we thought we might have found a suitable stand in.
And (finally) on to the point of this post.
We came downstairs and Sophia spotted the 3rd elephant and yelled “other Ellie!” She lit up and was delighted. She grabbed and hugged her. Alexander was already awake at this time but a wee bit fussy. Sophia-being the sweetheart she is-walked over to him and started trying to appease him by playing with him. When that didn’t settle him down, she leaned down and gave him a big old hug. (Proud, beautiful moment for a parent to have your 2 year old hug her 5 month old brother without prompting.)
But then things got even cuter.

Sophia's "pink choo-choo"
As I calmed Alexander down (read, found pacifier), Sophia went off and entertained herself. When I turned my attention to her, I saw she’d definitely found a way to keep herself busy.Without any intervention or input from me, Sophia had set up a “pink choo-choo”. Her words, not mine. She had arranged to kitchen chairs back-to-back, put the Ellie and other Ellie in one chair, and sat in the second chair. Her “pink choo-choo” was complete with the requisite “choo-choo” sounds. Of course, the highlight was when she asked if I wanted to ride the pink choo-choo. Of course, nothing is beneath me.
Once the rest of the house was awake, Mommy realized she needed to go upstairs for something. Sophia very much wanted to stay with Mommy. As we all began heading upstairs, Sophia turned around, looked at me and said, “Daddy, go downstairs.” I guess I had outlived my usefulness.
Small Album of pix from this AM
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Click to view as a slideshow