Personality Eruptions

If this weekend had to be named, it would be the Weekend of Personality. Julia did many funny, strange, and unique Julia Things that literally forced me to stagger from the dinner table because I was just laughing too hard.

One thing which she did continuously was perfect a hilarious sing-song way of pronouncing certain two-word phrases. She doesn't just say "puppy dog," she says something like "poe-PEE-dowwwwwg." I dunno where the quasi-Southern accent comes from, but it has developed since we moved down I-35 from Minneapolis. This afternoon, in asking for Squeaky Ben, an ancient teddy bear that once belonged to her mother and is now Julia's current favorite, she said, "Acky-ack Hen." The best example, which she uses more for comedic effect rather than actual information-conveyance, is "poopy diaper," pronounced as "poo-PEED-eye-puh" in one rush of exhalation and then repeated three-four times in a row, like a crazed chant: "poo-PEED-eye-puhp-EED-eye-puhp-EED-eye-puhp-EED-eye-puh."

Repetition is funny, but at no point has it been funnier than at dinner tonight, when she started suddenly giving each of us a look of fake surprise - mouth slightly open in a pink oval, eyebrows waaaaay too high, eyes wide. She went back and forth between us for five minutes, pausing now and again to eat more apple bread or sweeet potato, then uncorking it on her unsuspecting audience and relishing her ability to get us to laugh so hard and for so long. And just when I thought she was done - after I'd left the table to catch my breath - she zapped me with it again. I swear one eyebrow was even higher for that last time, just as a sign she knew she was being sly.