"Do you really want me to read you this?" Chris asked with eyebrows raised, staring at his three year old daughter who sat in front of him with a hopeful expression on her small face.

"Pwease Daddy, pwetty pwetty pwease!"

"Oh alright. As long as you don't fall asleep 'cause it's not your bedtime for another two hours and I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night with you like last time. You remember last time?" Smiling at the memory, holding his arms out for Hope and laughed when she jumped on his knee's squealing gleefully.

"I pwomise!"

He opened the book that Hope had picked and stared at it in slight revulsion. He had no idea why Hope wanted him to read the book to her now. Ever since her mother found it in some abandoned shop and gave it to her she hadn't even glanced at it saying that it wasn't as believable as the Little Mermaid and Cinderella who she knows are real since her "Aunt Phoebe was them. I know she was she told me so!"

"Once, a long time ago, all the penguins in the South Pole decided to take a great big ship out to sea in search for warmer places, cause they were sick of eating fish all day and they wanted to work on their tan. On they traveled, past all the dreary countries of the north to the hot countries of the Mediterranean-"

"Daddy what's the meriteraneon?"

"It's sea near the equator. The penguins stopped in a small island-"

"What's the ekwator?"

"It's a big circle that divides the world in two. They went to the island looking for-"

"But I thought the world was a big ball."

"It is. Looking for-"

"But if it's a big ball how can it be in two?"

They continued on in this fashion with Chris saying one line and Hope questioning everything, answering all the questions with the patience that only a father can have until they finally reached the end.

"-And then the penguins went home grateful to be back in the snow with plenty of fish for them to feast on."

Hope sat in silence for a few minutes after the end of the story before breaking the silence.

"Sometimes I feel like the tap-dancing penguins onstage with skateboards for feet."

Laughing at her reference to the outrageous book, he tried to squeeze out his reply "why's that Hopey?"

"Whenever you make me wear that stupid dress Mommy made me everyone stares at me at dancing. Then I'm sliding all over the place cause you make me put on those stupid shiny shoes Phoebe got me for my birfday. It just don't work Daddy. I won't wear them again. I wont! I want to watch Dora Daddy, can I watch Dora now?" She looked up at him pleading with her big, heart melting eyes that she knew could get her dad to bend to her every need.

"Go on then" shaking his head in exasperation and smiling softly as Hope tried to decide which one of her Dora DVD's she wanted to watch, her face screwed up in concentration. Any minute now her mother would be home shouting at Chris for letting Hope laze around all day when they both could have been doing something 'productive' while she was off working to keep them going. Something that happened everyday, but something Chris never tired of, mundane as it was.