All I need now are the pants with the hula hoop waist and a really tiny car...

It starts out small.

The minute your child is born, you find yourself constantly smiling at them and making those faces with the really dramatic eyebrow raise. As soon as they start to smile back at you, you kick it up a notch with the wild gestures... which for me included a lot of flailing arms and exaggerated peek-a-boo motions.

Then the kid starts laughing and you pretty much go nuts. I have been known to do some pretty ridiculous things to get that much sought after giggle... lets just say I would probably drop dead if my high school crush ever walked in on our "90 second dance parties" - enough said.

At some point though, when the tantrum stage hits, a certain desperation creeps into the entertaining routine. You realize another reason for this impromptu gesticulating, loud excited happy voice using, and funny noise making--distraction. This is especially true in public places. Take this evening, for example. Sean and I decided to take Kelan to a sit down restaurant for a late dinner. In retrospect it was ill-advised as Kelan missed a nap and is cutting his canines.

At some point between rolling up the kids menu and using it as a telescope, and driving a matchbox car down a make-shift coaster ramp, I looked around at all of our fellow diners casually eating over adult conversation (not wolfing down food at a mach 8) and thought to myself- at what point did I turn into a clown?