“I don’t know what happened to the rest of the sketties, Daddy. I can’t figure it out. I was eating them and then they were gone!” she said with a fuss so convincing that he believed her.
“It’s okay, Baby. Tell Daddy what you remember,” he said softly, less concerned with where she had dropped the bowl of spaghetti than the fact that she looked like she was about to start crying.
“Um … well,” she started, swallowing the lump in her throat as she collected her thoughts and tried to remember. “You put the sketties in my bowl an’ I counted ’em all to make sure I knew how many there were so’s I wouldn’t lose any of ’em.”
“Did you actually count them?” her Daddy asked with surprise.
“Uh-Huh!” she responded cheerfully.
“How many were there?” he asked with a grin on his face.
“Leventy-Billion!” she said with a confidence and pride of self in her tone. “I counted twice to make sure.”
“Okay,” he said, smiling at her answer. “Go on. What happened next?”
“Well, I started eating them, one at a time…,” she continued as her mind wandered off.
“And then?” he said softly, trying to help her to stay focused.
“And I ‘member looking out the kitchen window at a bluebird who flew up to say hello,” she continued slowly, lost in her memories before looking up at him with sad, puppy dog eyes. “And when I looked back at the bowl, all the sketties were gone.”
Her Daddy looked at her with a knowing grin.
“Maybe the doggy ate them!” she suggested excitedly, trying to find some way to cover up the truth.
“We don’t have a doggy, Princess,” her Daddy reminded her.
“Oh …,” she said, searching quickly for what to say next. “Well, can we get a doggy, Daddy?”
He pulled out the front of the waist band of her diaper, peeking inside and she touched the plastic fork to her pouty, lower lip as he discovered where the missing spaghetti strands had mysteriously wandered off to. Lifting her out of her high chair and putting her on his hip, her carried her back to her nursery for a much-needed diaper change.
“And what would you like to name this doggy?” her Daddy asked her, gently patting her diapered bottom as he was sure that she had a tush-full of pasta as well.
He placed her on her changing table next to her crib and unfastened the tapes of her diaper.
“How about Noodle?” she asked with an innocent tone.
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