Another Game Bites The Dust

Gabi figured something out over the weekend that nearly broke her daddy's heart.

Ever since she started tottling around with things in her arms, he's played a game with her that involves stealing whatever is in her hands and pretending to eat it. He turns sideways and tilts his head back. All she sees is his open mouth, and the item going down the hatch and disappearing.

This is incredibly distressing to her. As you can well imagine! A toy eating daddy is not the most ideal playmate. But Gilberto gets such a kick out of the whole thing.

When she was little, Gabi would push on his tummy, and after a few pushes he would pretend, with giant wretches, to throw it back up. Usually by distracting her and then throwing the toy up into the air like it had just shot out of his mouth.

It's always quite the show. A really lovely thing to see. It's amazing how watching someone just pretending to throw up can start the commiserate dry heaving.

(Are all daddies this disgusting? Or are we just lucky?)

Gabi would then grab her upchucked toy and run to hide, happy to have thwarted the big bad toy eating daddy yet again.

And she was a believer in her daddy's toy swallowing abilities all the way up until Saturday.

I can't remember exactly what it was he grabbed, but it was something soft, like a stuffed animal. She ran to it after it'd been upchucked, then stood there in confusion for a minute, inspecting the toy.

Gabi: Hey! This doesn't have any gross spit on it!

Gilberto: Oh. Um. Well, that's because it got cleaned up when it was sailing through the air.

Gabi: You DIDN'T swallow it! Or it would be wet with yucky tummy goo! Daddy, you were just PRETENDING!

She had such an accusing tone! It was like, for the very first time, she was seeing it with total clarity. The way an adult would see it.

You should've seen Gilberto's face. The poor guy looked like he was going to cry! Besides his baby growing up and developing awesome deduction skills, this was also his most favorite means of torture, and in just a few seconds it had been ripped away from him.

Gilberto: Laural? My technique was good, right? Did I do something wrong?

And me? I couldn't stop laughing long enough to answer. Which ended up with him laughing with me, so all was good in the end.

Gilberto did try it one more time, just to be sure that it was truly over. Gabi stood there with her hands on her hips and said indignantly, "Daddy, I KNOW you didn't swallow it. It's in your hand. Now give it to me RIGHT NOW!" And toy in hand, she marched off, totally disgusted that her dad would try to pull that over on her again.

So the swallowing/upchuck game has joined the ranks of several other games that Gabi has outgrown.

And I'd be excited over not having to listen to Gabi screech all the time about her daddy stealing and eating her toys, but that man is resourceful. Last night he was already scheming about new ways to aggravate and annoy.

I don't ever see this stopping. He's going to be the dad that plays tricks on his teenage daughter and humiliates her in front of all her friends on an ongoing basis.

I'm torn between teaming up with her to thwart him, and sitting back to watch all the entertainment unfold.