During our Alaska vacation, Heidi and I developed a running joke about the future teenagehood of her lil’ baby, now 8-month old James. We got no end of amusement out of envisioning him tall, lanky, and awkward, with long-ish unkempt boy-hair, sagging pants, and a hilarious long-strided walk.

Heidi was uncannily good at imitating this imaginary future James. She could snap into character at the drop of a hat. Normally her carriage is very elegant–being a ballerina and a certified Pilates instructor, her spine is ramrod straight and she moves with grace and coordination. But as soon as I said the magic words ‘teenage James,’ she would slouch, stick her neck out, and start loping across the living room. With a bored, nonchalant, kind of spacey low voice she would say “Mooooom . . . I think we’re out of Pop Tarts.”

Entire dialogues took place, with Heidi herself switching back and forth and playing the parts of a Napoleon Dynamite-esque teenage James and his imaginary mother, an optimistic, bouncy, practical woman with a high, nasal, and quite cheery voice.

The scenarios were endless, and I couldn’t stop cracking up: his mom trying to get him to clean his room, James responding with “Mooooom, I don’t have time! Jeremy’s already here. I gotta go,” and loping off. His mom signing off on his report card. His mom trying to get him to take out the trash.

I tried to get into both characters as well, but Heidi was so much funnier just handling the entire back-and-forth herself. Heidi, oh Heidi. You are one of the funniest people I know.

I laughed so hard.

Right now he’s a baby . . .

. . . but it won’t be long before he’s lookin’ more like this.