Turns out, Sophie was born to travel.

She doesn’t get car sick, has no anxiety about flying, can sleep just about anywhere, and while she doesn’t pack light, her things are so small they never take up much space. She is pretty easy to feed as long as there’s bread, rice or some form of noodle on the menu; all she really wants is a to-go cup with a lid, preferably filled with cranberry juice but she’ll compromise.

And she loves hotels. Most of all, Sophie loves the front desk clerks at hotels. Maybe she’s got it in her blood (until recently, my family on my father’s side ran a hotel) or maybe it’s just because she is at her best with a captive audience.

She charmed so many staff members so quickly at the Ace Hotel in Portland a few weeks ago that by the time we checked into our room, there was a handwritten postcard and salt water taffy waiting for Sophie, wishing her a fun time. Later, a clerk overheard me admonishing Sophie for trying to score another free toothbrush and reached around me, silently handing her one. Without being asked, the bell boy produced a cardboard envelope to hold Sophie’s photo booth loot. It was out of control, in the best ways.

Then we got to San Francisco. Sitting in the lobby of the Hotel Triton, watching a young hotel employee teach Sophie to hula hoop, I started thinking about how we could make this a lifestyle. By the time that clerk had returned from the drug store with a coloring book and crayons for Sophie (no kidding and yes, I gave him a giant tip), I had an idea.

We should start a blog, call it Travels with Sophie, and make it all about her adventures — dancing in Jackson Square in New Orleans, walking Goofy down Main Street at Disneyland, doing the splits for President Obama in front of the White House. It would be great! Because Sophie is at her most awesome when she’s out in the world, soaking it up and letting it soak her up, too.

The next day we woke up and took a trolley to the Castro, wandered through the most incredible variety store (Cliff’s) I’ve ever seen, and stopped at a restaurant for lunch. Ray wasn’t with us in Portland, we’d joined up the day before in San Francisco, and he wasn’t as into Sophie’s super-friendly ways as I was.

Now I must pause to say that I totally get that. Sophie can overstay her welcome, and more important, there are some Stranger Danger and general etiquette lessons to be taught. So I don’t blame Ray for scolding Sophie gently after she’d asked the waitress what might have been her fiftieth question. And I didn’t think much of it as we all proceeded to finish our lunch.

A few minutes later, we’d paid the check and I took Sophie to the bathroom. I was still humming away, thinking about our future travels, high on vacation, when Sophie asked me, “Hey Mom, will I have Down syndrome my whole life?”

I felt my mood shrivel up and drift away, like a popped balloon.

“Yes, you will.”

“I don’t want to have Down syndrome.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I hugged her. It wasn’t the first time she’d told me she didn’t want to have DS, but it had been a while. Every day, it seems, I get more comfortable with the fact that she has it; not so for Sophie, apparently.

We walked out of the bathroom and Sophie picked up where she’d left off with the waitress, comparing notes on favorite TV shows, and we met up outside with Ray and Annabelle. The rest of the trip was filled with candy-making, browsing in Chinatown, walking (part of) the Golden Gate Bridge, then driving to LA, where Sophie charmed another set of clerks, securing free books from the hotel library and eliciting whispers of “Look at her! She’s so cute!”

And she was, strutting through the hotel lobby in one of her several wardrobe changes of the day, free from school dress codes, hard tests and unfriendly junior high peers. But not free from Down syndrome. That goes with her wherever Sophie goes.