I should have known, based on all of the evidence at hand, that once my daughter went from Infant to Sentient Being, there would be trouble.

Don't get me wrong. She is, as the pictures indicate, a stunning little baby in both appearance and personality. I'll admit that it took a bit longer for us to bond - Beth had dibs on her, and you dads out there who scratch their heads in bemusement over the whole Mother/Daughter Thing will know exactly what I'm talking about. But bond we did - every time I walk into the room, she lights up and usually starts giggling (at which point I typically check my shoe to see if I'm trailing toilet paper), and I do something I never did with Lucas - use the Baby Voice (with him, it was "Hey, dude! How's it hangin'?"; with her, it's "ZO-ZO! ZO-ZO! ZEE-ZEE! MWAH MWAH MWAH!" - and please, let's keep that between us, as I have a tough guy rep to protect). And - although this may be a complete coincidence - she has taken to saying "da da". (To me, yes, but also to the dog, her ExerSaucer, her high chair, the laundry basket, etc.)

Her apparent affection for me is a good thing, of course. But who she REALLY digs? The coolest guy in the room?

Her brother.

To use a geek analogy: if our lives were the D.C. comic World's Finest, in her eyes I would most definitely be Batman, and Lucas would be Superman. Now, don't get me wrong - Batman's pretty cool; he's got the car, the cave, the batarang. But can he fly around the world backwards, turning back time? No. And that's Lucas to her - when he's in the same room with her, her eyes never leave him; when he sits down to play with her, she literally shrieks with delight. Superman. This is, of course, a good thing, made better by the fact that he is an excellent Big Brother. When she cries and he's around, he'll sit next to her and softly sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and hold her hand and she immediately calms down (and, in an odd coincidence, every time that happens the air in the room suddenly gets really dusty or fills up with cat dander or pollen or something).

So it's all good...too good. Lucas is such a force of nature that I was sure that having a Type-A personality sister would produce a sibling rivalry to equal that of King Lear's kids. That hasn't happened; quite the opposite, as Lucas is genuinely thrilled to have a baby sister. At first, we thought that he was happy to have another playmate, and that he was as charmed by her inherent sweetness as the rest of us. But I've since realized that while both are true, there's something a bit more sinister at work here. What concerns me is a particular laugh, a throaty "heh heh" that she emits when Lucas is being, as the Brits might put it, "cheeky". Lucas: "Daddy, I'm gonna put spaghetti on my head!" Zoe: "Heh heh!" Lucas: "Daddy, you have a big butt!" Zoe: "Heh heh!" Lucas: "Daddy, the Spurs are my favorite basketball team!" Zoe: "Heh heh!" (I can forgive the first two; the third is grounds for the kiddies to be sent to work in the bauxite mines.) It is the diabolical laugh of the Co-Conspirator. Lucas has gained more than a sister. He's gained an ally! God help us.