To paraphrase Jane Austen:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a baby in possession of a good humor, must be in want of an audience.

It’s been said that you will never in your life meet anyone funnier than your own children, and I think whoever said that was totally right.

Now, I don’t know that this is necessarily a universal experience. There are exceptions. I’ve actually met some pretty dour parents and babies in my time. But it’s pretty standard that no one can crack a person up like their own kid can, and I know that in my case I sometimes feel like I have, in the person of my 20-month old son, the single most hilarious, entertaining kid in the history of kids.

There is some degree of parental subjectivity involved here, of course, since I understand that simply by hearing him laughing he can bring me my biggest smile of the day. I’m not under the delusion that anyone else but my wife (and, to a slightly lesser extent, my parents and my in-laws) can really, fully, appreciate our boy’s comedic genius when, for instance, he sits on an upturned Tupperware bowl and tries to spin in a circle but falls over like he’s drunk. Or the hilarity of when he’s asked to put something away and he puts it in the crock pot. The day he discovered he could scale the back of the couch and joyfully flick the lights on and off? That’s at least on the same level as Jim Carrey talking about of his own butt.

I make no apologies for finding his finely crafted comedy act the funniest thing since Homer Simpson tried to snare a rabbit — that really cracked me up when I was 14 — even while acknowledging that, deep down, most fellow parents who finds him as funny as I do are probably simply being reminded of their own hilarious kid. And that’s okay.

I think there must be something built into our DNA that just cannot resist the charms of a happy baby who wants nothing more than to make us smile. Maybe it’s one of those fascinating natural equalizers, wherein the joy a baby brings so easily counteracts any misgivings a caregiver may have about their child due to erratic sleep schedules, food splattered on walls, or the unending stream of poopy diapers. It’s crazy how fast we forgive and forget because our son cracks us up right after doing something he shouldn’t be doing.

(As I was writing this, I heard suspicious giggling coming from his room. Looking in on him, I see he discovered the fresh package of diaper wipes, and had proceeded to pull out about half the package. “What are you doing!?” I asked. He raised his hands and shrugged innocently, as if to say “I don’t know, it’s my first day!”. How can I not laugh?)

Actually, this kind of worries me a little, in what it bodes for the future. Am I raising the class clown? Maybe. But for the time being I am really enjoying having my own personal comedian.

Getting to spend so much time with The Funniest Kid Alive is just one more of the Great Untold Perks of what I do, I suppose.