Breakfast By Annie

The first thing I ask Annie when she wakes up in the morning is “Food?” She always responds with an enthusiastic “YES,” so I take her into the kitchen, put her in her high chair, and make a suggestion such as “Eggs?” She then shouts another enthusiastic “YES!”

Once I place Annie’s food on her tray I ask, “Elmo Abby?” and she again responds “YES!” I then pour milk into her sippy cup (which has Elmo and Abby Cadabby on the side) and hand it to her. As you can see, we have our breakfast routine down pretty well – so well, in fact, that Annie decided that it was time to return the favor.

It happened yesterday when Annie ran up to me out of the blue and asked, “Food?” Curious where she was going with this, I responded with an Annie-esque “YES!”

“Okay, Daddy,” Annie said as she grabbed my hand. “Come on!”

She dragged me over to the playhouse she got on Christmas morning and ordered me to sit at the bar. She then went inside and asked, “Eggs?” I did my best to keep a straight face as I responded with another “YES,”  then watched her pretend to cook on the plastic stove.

After a few seconds she set a plate of imaginary eggs in front of me and asked, “Coffee?” I just about spit out my imaginary eggs. Heather is the one who drinks coffee in the morning – I am a Diet Coke kind of guy – but I was nonetheless startled (and impressed) that she knew to offer me an adult drink and not “Elmo Abby.”

When I finished eating Annie invited me inside her house. The square footage reminded me of Heather’s old apartment in New York:

While I was in there Annie did what a lot of women do when they have their dad over – ask me to fix something. She pointed at the cabinet under the sink and said, “Open?”

The cabinet, of course, is just decoration, but since we were having so much fun imagining I told her, “It’s locked.” She thought hard on this before asking, “Whassin’ dere?”

I finally had to laugh. Her question was the kind of surreal, imaginative, and totally “kid” thinking that we all eventually have drummed out of us. That, unfortunately, will happen soon enough, but until it does I will play along and enjoy her amazing little imagination.

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