From Cute to Criminal And Back Again: Daily Fatherhood at a Glance

She's got nearly every aspect of the criminal's craft down pat.  It started with lying.

One morning, just before I left for work, I could smell her.  A fresh poop.

"Chloe," I asked, "Did you poo?"

Without letting a pause settle in and identify the guilty through body language and awkward silence, she yelled, "NO NO NO!" Yeah, okay, right.  You didn't poop. There's a green haze settling in the house, the paint's peeling, and it probably came in from the neighbors. No prob, kid. Sorry to have bothered you.

Look at the way she looks at me while contaminating the evidence, my carrot stolen right out of my hands. What's next the car keys?
You know what she did last night?  I was eating a carrot while watching her play with her toy castle, dancing prince and princess. Chloe turned, saw, charged, grabbed the carrot out of my hand chomped down with an über-slobbery bite, and kind of nodded and hummed like, "Mmm, not bad." Classic. And disgusting.  And gone.  Stolen.

But she looked at me with her big round blue eyes and smiled.  So I offered her some ice cream too.

Seriously, what's my child learning?  Liar, thief and con artist now!

What's next?  I'll tell you what's next because it just surfaced tonight at dinner.  No guessing. We're all munching down on chicken enchilada casserole and chips and salsa - two of us with cold limey Pacificos - and in her odd Chloe form, she's dipping chips into the firey chipotle salsa and licking off the salsa.  Then re-dipping.  She has much to learn before I take her to a dinner party. But that's not the point.

She burped.  Well, that's normal.  But then! THEN! She looked down at Elmo, who's on her red and white striped shirt with his stupid big red grin and all, and goes, "Elmo! Don't do that!"

Now she's framing her friends.  My little two-year-old daughter: Liar, thief, con artist, and fraudster.  Next, she'll be Republican.