Erin will kill me for this one some day

So I'm sitting on the couch in our living room yesterday watching a program on the Military Channel about the battle for Najaf in Iraq. It's hot out, and figuring it is just to early in the season, I haven't installed any of the air conditioners yet. Because of this, all of the windows in the house are open and the fans are working overtime. With the windows open and because of our house's proximity to the road, every time a big diesel engine or a motorcycle goes by, the sound of the telvision is completely drowned out.

Erin has been quietly playing in her room, in the dark, for the better part of an hour. Don't ask me why she was playing in the dark because I have no idea. She just yelled at me the couple of times that I tried to turn on her light, so I accepted that she was happy in the dark (maybe she figured it was cooler in her room with the light off... again, I don't know), and left her to do her thing. Suddenly, I hear this hysterical laughter emanating from Erin's room. I rise from the couch and tiptoe to the doorway of her room, pausing outside. Erin is sitting cross-legged (in the dark) on the floor between her two dollhouses. She hasn't seen me. I quickly survey the room, but see no evidence of anything that could have been so funny. I'm just about to announce my presence and start my interrogation about what was so funny, when I witness her private little joke that had her in such hysterics.

Using her fingers in an upside down "V" like a pair of legs (more on this in another blog post to come), she makes them walk across the roof of one of the dollhouses, all the while singing, in an impossibly high, shrill voice:

"There goes Mommy's UNDERPANTS".

There was a good deal of extra special emphasis on the word "underpants".

Then she crumples over on to her back on the floor, laughing hysterically. I bit my lip and covered my mouth, trying so hard not to crack up laughing. I stood anonymously outside her door for a good 10 minutes as this little performance repeated over and over again, quietly sharing in what can only be defined as a "precious moment".