Quintessentially Quinn:

The other night Quinn, my two year old granddaughter made up a new game.  I call it Birthday Surprise, but I'm sure Quinn would call it Hap-py Birthday.

"Okay everybody (Erica, Bill and I) it's Circle Time," Quinn announces to us.  So we all sit in a circle on the floor of my bedroom.

Quinn gets up.  "Okay then is everybody ready?" she asked.  The three of us chorus "Ready!"

Quinn turns out the light, puts her finger on her lips and says "Be very quiet."  She goes to the door and reminds us all to be very quiet and then says, "Okay, I'll be right back."

In a moment she is back.  She flips on the light, throws both arms in the air and yells "Hap-py Birthday!"   She goes back and turns on the light  and the four of us throw our arms in the air and scream "Hap-py Birthday!"  The delighted look on her face seeing us do what she told us to do was priceless.

We played this game over and over and over.  The three of us laughed so hard.  At one point I was laughing so hard.  She points her finger at me after she turned on the light and says, "Gramma, you didn't do it."  I assure her that I would remember the next time and the game continued.  Bill forgot to raise his arms once and she points her finger at him and says, "No, Popi, you have to raise your arms," as she demonstrates once again.  Erica, however, was a model student so she never got a finger pointed at her.

It is amazing to me how many times she could repeat the same thing over and over  and never once  lose her enthusiasm and joy. A two year old laugh is definitely contagious.   This went on for an hour until Popi and Gramma could no longer sit on the floor and it was thankfully her bedtime.