Tricky

Today is the first Football Sunday of the season! All must now bow down to the big-screen tv, and the large men running around on it.

This is an important time for Chris. He bought all of the girls brand-new Ravens shirts, and then he hunkered down in the basement to revel in the first full day of football since last year. It's been a long, sad off-season for him.

The girls were really great today, spending some time watching the game with him downstairs but mainly playing either upstairs or outside.

And then, about an hour before bedtime, Katie revolted.

She did it subtly. It could not have been more smooth had she been a criminal mastermind who had spent months planning it with a crack team of other criminal masterminds.

I was working on assembling a bookcase in the living room, and Katie quietly slipped away and went downstairs. Where she told Chris that she thought I needed his help. And then casually mentioned that she might flip the channel - just for a minute - while he was away.

I didn't need help. Chris came upstairs just long enough to ascertain this, and then he immediately realized that he had been snookered.

Maybe she really did think that I needed help. I was using tools and stuff, and maybe that seemed like the sort of thing a pregnant woman shouldn't be messing with alone. Or maybe she just wanted to catch up on a few minutes of Animal Planet. It was probably a mixture of both. But the fact is, no-one could have read the situation better and then turned it to her own advantage better than Katie did. Except Chris.

This may seem like I am bragging about my child being sneaky, but that's really not the case. I know she sincerely thought I needed help. But when she acted on her assumptiom, she knew it was only an assumption and she knew it would buy her a few minutes with the t.v. And it makes me laugh, because that is pure Chris. She may not look just like him, but she more than any of the girls is her father's daughter. Chris writ small, and female, and way too smart.