The emergence of Emilie

With just over a month left in my stint as a stay-at-home dad, the good times with babygirl are really starting to roll. I can barely believe she's the same person as the tiny swaddled creature who shared our bedroom last summer, so quiet and motionless in her bassinet that I would often bend low over her, holding my breath until I could finally hear hers, just to make sure.

That tiny creature is now a two-foot-six, 23-pound junior juggernaut on the cusp of toddlerhood, a kid with her own bedroom—and her own personality, which is becoming more and more evident as she comes to her self-aware senses:

A sense of humour

A funny thing has happened to the kid: she's gone from laughing at the usual peek-a-boo and tickling antics to laughing at things that are actually funny. She finds it uproarious to stuff whatever she's been chewing on into Mom's mouth, as if to say, "Here, now you be the baby!" That bit kills me every time. This week she came up with some new material: biting down on her spoon when I'm feeding her. I then have to let go so she can chomp on it like a J. Jonah Jameson cigar, chuckling at me through her four teeth, until she grabs it and hands it back to me for the next mirthful mouthful. I am grateful that she has yet to realize the laff-riot potential of slamming into the back of my heels with her walker.

A sense of adventure

Dora the Explorer has nothing on babygirl! All around the house, she's boldly going where no baby has gone before, opening new doors both figurative and literal. Especially the doors to the liquor cabinet, where she has shown a disappointing tendency to reach for the apple-tini premix instead of the Crown Royal. She loves to crawl at breakneck speed down the upstairs hallway and into various bedrooms. And she's already conquered the closest thing to Everest the house has to offer: the curving carpeted staircase from the main floor to the bedroom level. But, like Indiana Jones confronted with a snake, she's still leery of the sproingy doorstop at the top of those stairs.

A sense of drama

Lately, I've been taking some of her tears as seriously as voters in my province took Michael Ignatieff. We've been watching some playoff hockey in the evenings, and I'm starting to think she's learned a few tricks from those weaselly players who try a little embellishment after falling down. But I'm a bit like a ref who keeps one eye on what's happening behind the play, so I can usually tell what she's up to. The key, I've discovered, is to avoid eye contact in the crucial moment just after she bonks her head or sits down hard, when she looks around to see whether I've noticed. If I am able to feign ignorance of the situation, she simply resumes babbling away and doing whatever she was doing. If I am not, she gives me the expression in the accompanying photo, and the two-minute penalty for being a sucker for a crying girl.