We’ve become Those Parents who trot our child out and ask her to perform for company.

God help us.

It starts innocently enough – Thalia likes singing the goodbye song from school. She likes showing company how many rhymes she can make. (Telelphone…delephone!) She likes the knock knock jokes.

The next thing you know, we have a roomful of brunch guests, with Thalia at the center of them all, showing them her Dancey Dance moves and reciting the Redskins fight song.

And here Nate and I are justifying it, oh look, our guests are charmed! They think it’s great! They love our kids! Here we are not even contemplating for a moment that our friends are going to go walk out the door and before the elevator has reached the lobby, they’re going to be grabbing each other and saying, “Did we really just spend our entire Sunday listening to a three year-old rhyme ball with mall then tell us all about how she poops by herself?”

I think you could say we’re officially parents now. The plaque is on its way.