JULY 29 — My four-month-old daughter Athena has entered the phase where she babbles and screams in singsong style for hours on end.

As a first-time parent, it’s absolutely exciting to see my kid chatting away and laughing. But it can get pretty scary too at times.

It really starts to become a cause for concern when the little kid starts to talk to inanimate objects all around her.

One of the books my wife and I have been reading to Athena is titled “My Pet Monkey” and it seems to be one of her favourites.

This kind of broke my heart since I thought her favourite book would be “Operation Nasi Kerabu — Finding Patani in an Islamic Insurgency”, written by yours truly.

(By the way, it’s available at all major bookstores for RM25 and comes with a free documentary DVD. Rest assured that all proceeds will go to buying milk and diapers!)

One afternoon, while I was watching television (I mean, I was watching Athena, honey!), I heard her squealing and gurgling quite loudly.

I turned around and saw that “My Pet Monkey” had somehow fallen next to her with the big pop-up monkey head right by her face and she was talking to it!

Another time, I was watching Bersih videos on YouTube (I mean, I was watching Athena, honey!) and again I heard her babbling quite loudly.

I turned around to see her (I had propped her up on the bean bag in front of the TV) trying to have a conversation with Piers Morgan on CNN.

Another afternoon, while I was watching downloaded episodes of Conan O’Brien (I mean, I was watching Athena, honey!), I heard loud babbling from her direction.

Athena was staring straight ahead and she was, yet again, trying to strike up a conversation. But this time, it was with absolutely nothing!

Now you have to understand my concern. I always thought that if I have a kid, he or she would inherit my intelligence.

But now that my daughter is actually talking to things that human beings of average intelligence don’t talk to, I naturally blame my wife for it.

“Why is our daughter trying to talk to her shoe?” I asked my wife.

“She’s a baby!” she replied.

“She’s supposed to be smart. This must be your genes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, I have a master’s degree. You only have a bachelor’s degree. So it can’t be my genes, can it?”

Of course, my mother had to ruin everything when she revealed that when I was Athena’s age, I screamed at the bars of my playpen as if I was debating in Parliament.

Well, what else can we expect? Our daughter is naturally going to be a chatterbox considering that her pops talks like an over-excited Hakka while her mother is a TV presenter.

But it’s all good because the sound of little Athena babbling away is the best alarm clock in the morning and the perfect pick-me-up after a hard day of work.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.