The hunt for K

One thing about our girl; We've never seen anyone so serious about play.

Hope approaches toys with an intensity rarely seen outside of "Rocky" movies. She dives in her Exersaucer like a lunch-bucket working stiff clocking in for another 8 hours and inspects her Happy Meal toys like a jeweler scrutinizing a ruby.

But Hopesy's devotion to toys is fleeting. For weeks, she'll absolutely adore her Dice-K doll or xylophone, giggling at the sight of them and lavishing them with her love. And then -- poof -- the spell has past and she's moving on.

The new objects of her obsession are foam letters. They're intended as bathtub toys, but we keep them in a bucket. Hope sits on the floor, purposefully rifling through the letters until she finds just the right one. She discards the Os and Ds until -- jackpot -- she uncovers the H, K or Z.

Eureka! The mother load! And now, the denouement, the final payoff: She plops the letter into her mouth, sucks on it for 5 minutes, laughing like mad, until, just like that, she's done and back to combing through the bucket for another prize.