She's a comedian

Austin 1 month old in his Bouncer

Our family was having a nice lazy day inside.  Austin was cooing and kicking comfortably in his colorful bouncer with oscillator set to maximum.  Meanwhile my daughter Erika, my wife and myself were playing with a variety of toys.  All around an awesome time together.

Erika loves her plastic food, a wonderful gift from my sister in law.  It has an assortment of fruit, vegetables, canned goods, cereals and condiments.  I am uncertain of the exact number of pieces this particular play food set came with, due to several stragglers who keep disappearing and re-emerging in different parts of the house, but I would put the count at 500 or 70 give or take a couple.  I think we did something to my sister in law to make her mad at us.

Erika also loves books, there is this one book in particular, a Thomas the Train book.  It is fairly large, about 2 feet by 1 foot with a musical keyboard on the side of it.  Erika was encouraging me to juggle 2 plastic eggs and a plastic apple.  Juggling 3 items is at the very limit of my skill.  Erika accidentally steps on her Thomas the Train book.  I see this and tell Erika; "Be careful sweetheart that is a nice book and you do not want wreck it."  Erika stepped off the book then she gave me this sideways glance with a hint of a smile that reeks of defiance.  Making sure that she had full eye contact with me she proceeded to step back down on her Thomas the Train book.  I briskly got up from my juggling spot, walked up to Erika and took her book and said; " If you are not going to take care of it, I am going to take it away."  I then walked into the entranceway and place it in the closet to be retrieved at a later time.

My wife told me later, that when I had left the room Erika had this look as though she was going to cry.  She never did.

One of Erika's looks of contempt

I return to the living room and sat back down on the floor, the whole while my daughter was looking at me with this look of total contempt on her face.  Erika then casually walked over to where I was sitting, all the while keeping the same look of disapproval.  She stopped directly in front of me calmly raised her arm and simply bonked me on the head, and then she just started laughing it up.  I couldn't help but smile.  To be quite honest she did a good job at confusing me, because I had been expecting Erika to lash out for having taken her book, but I did not see this coming.  All I hear from my wife is quiet snorting and gasping, because she had turned to face the wall trying to stem her laughter.

It is times like these that make it all worth while.  2 days later and it still makes me chuckle.


P.S. 22 days until my attack dogs are munching on my brothers behind.