Sophie in Funkytown

Funkytown is Fort Worth. According to my little brother's tattoo, anyway. This weekend it was a bit more like Freakytown, with a tornado touching down near my Gram's house in Weatherford (and she said, "C'mon out tonight...do you think I want to die alone?"), flash floods in my mom and stepdad's cul-de-sac that came dangerously close to the house, and then...the next morning...not a cloud in the sky. That's Texas weather for you.

So our weekend consisted of a parade through my mom's work (everyone in the building seemed to know Sophie already, from the shrine in my mom's office), then lunch with Mom and my brother Jeff, then a haircut for me at Claudia's salon, then over to Mom's house where we got stranded for a few hours while the streets flooded, then out to the farm at 10 p.m. (so Gram wouldn't be the only one in tornado alley). Sophie loved the fast-paced day and decided to stay up most of the night partying. I moved her from the pack-and-play to the big bed with us and, right after she'd drifted off to sleep, THUD. She rolled right out of the bed. She was fine (I was more upset than she was), but began crying for TOW (which is her new way of saying Cow), whom we had neglectfully and woefully left at home. My nephew Michael had sweetly donated a black and white Snoopy-esque animal as a substitute, which we put in her arms as we tried to tuck her back in to the pack-and-play. She promptly rejected it and began thrashing it against the sides of the playpen. And so she came back into the bed and slept while I groggily guarded her the rest of the night.

The next day was beautiful -- she played dress-up with Gram, read stories to Nana Jane, showed off her beebo (belly button) to Grandpa Jud, and played a little croquet in the yard. She trudged along with us at the First Monday flea market until Gram found a $7 stroller at one of the booths and then she said, "Ride! Ride!" We had "first lunch" at the farm because we had been too late the night before to enjoy Gram's stroganoff; we ate "second lunch" at Zeke's with my brother Jordan and his girlfriend Ashley because my mom has been craving fried fish. All in all, it was a fantastic whirlwind trip to Funkytown.