Sometimes when I'm doing some work or talking to one of the kids, I notice a little something behind me.  Subtle movement.  A small sound.  Not sure what is behind me, I whip my head around and each time I see the same thing - Martin smiling like he's Eddie Haskell's younger brother.  I smile back warily and ask him what he's doing.  Every time the response is the same - "Nothing" followed by a giggle.

And then I realized what was happening.  He was mocking me.  Behind MY BACK.  And boy, did it make me laugh.  When I asked him to show me some examples, he fired off half a dozen facial expressions and I knew he had been paying closer attention to me than I'd imagined.  He had me DOWN, my own face mirrored back to me in his contorted expressions.

Martin and Sophie sat down with some of their pals so I could get a few shots of Martin's first one man show.  Here are Batman, Woody, and Guy as the audience.  Martin doing his first impression of me, Sophie doing her impression of Martin.


Surely my face doesn't look like this, I thought.  But it turns out that I do this all day long.  This expression translates to "I don't know if that's a good idea" and "That looks like trouble is on the way" and "Maybe we shouldn't be doing this".


This is the look that means, "Hey, I have an idea" which is usually followed later by the one that means "Maybe we shouldn't be doing this" shown above.


I don't think I really stick out my tongue, I think this is one that Martin just likes to do.  But Sophie's expression?  THAT I do.


Martin's expression here was a mirror of my own.  Sophie's interest in our experiment was gone.


Now that he's mastered my expressions, it's only a matter of time until he starts to mock my voice.  Which, of course, will be the payback for mocking my own parents - which I can still do with uncanny accuracy.  Still making my parents proud after 34 years.