I'm raising me a smart one.

A few minutes ago, Sophie comes through carrying a big stuffed doll, a homemade Cabbage Patch doll that I'd won in a raffle when I was in grade school.

"I'm playing with this really old doll now," she tells me.

"What's that?" I ask, thinking to myself how that doll isn't old at all!

"You know, this doll that you played with when you were a little girl," she tells me, holding it up. "Maybe when I grow up and I'm too old for this doll too, I'll pass it to Lilly." Lilly is her cousin to whom she passes clothes, who in turn then passes them on to Suzi.

"Or maybe," I say, "You'll pass it on to your own little girl."

"Will I?" she says with a sweet smile. "I'll have my own little girl someday?"

"You might," I tell her, "After you grow up and get married." I'm figuring I'll start driving that point home already.

"Might I?" she asks. She's developed a cute habit lately of repeating things back in question form. She nods her head affirmatively and tells me, "I'll give this baby to my own little girl when I get married."

"Do you think you'll marry a boy or a girl?" I ask her.

She smiles sweetly and says, "A boy. Braxton is the one I'm going to marry." She told Braxton and his mom this at preschool a few weeks ago. They both seemed pretty agreeable.

Then Sophie tells me, "He's a boy who doesn't toot a lot."

"That," I say, "Is sound criteria to use."