Can’t even remember what she was chuckling at. Could have been:

“Why did the chicken cross the road?” (At which I relax my defenses a little bit: it is a chicken, after all, and not a poopy diaper)

“To get to the poopy diaper!” (Aaargh! Fooled again!)

Or maybe:

“Knock, knock.” (Glee in her voice.)

“Who’s there?” (Me, bracing for impact.)

“Poopy”

“Poopy who?” (Ha! Ready for it this time!)

“Orange you glad I didn’t say poopy diaper?!”

Ho!

She’s also branching out. Not just scripted, formulaic jokes. She actually pulled a trick on me recently, her first.

“Baba! Would you like to breathe?” She asks this as we’re both sitting at the table, though we’re engaged in sundry projects, between meals. We often take several deep breaths together as a family at the dinner table, before we launch into our little pre-dinner song. A kind of meditative centering moment, on the fly.

“Oh, Punky, I’d love to! What a wonderful idea!” I take in a deep breath through my nose, all thrilled that our precocious lil’ youngster is taking to calling meditative moments on her own initiative. I notice she’s just looking at me, and kinda faking the breathing deep part.

“Did you smell that?”

“Smell what?” I’m totally innocent here.

“I tooted!”

Score! Punky: 1, Baba: 0.