There's a Reason They're So Cute

The evening we planned to celebrate Daddy's birthday with cake, Heimer picked over her dinner plate as if she suspected it had been poisoned.

Mommy: You have to eat your supper if you want to eat birthday cake when Daddy gets home.

Heimer: (staring at her full plate)

Mommy: Are you all done? You won't get any birthday cake.

Heimer: Me done.

Daddy walked in the front door and we shouted, "Happy Birthday!" I lit the candles and began the song. Heimer, now sitting in Daddy's lap, sang in her sweetest baby-girl voice:

"Berf - day - Da - dee - Berf - day - Da - dee..."

Franklepea: (upon song's end) Heimer doesn't get any cake; she didn't eat her dinner.

Mommy: That's right. I told her she had to eat supper to get cake.

Daddy: I'll decide who gets cake. She can have cake.

(How naive to think I could compete with the disarming power of a two-year-old, red-haired, heart-melting songstress. I should have known.)