Rolling over. Babbling. Holding a bottle on her own. These are all milestones that my daughter Senita hit with very little fanfare from me. I noted them sure, but they didn’t make my heart sing.

The milestone I’m giddy with excitement for is her first laugh. She’s had joyful utterances such as shrieks, cries, and enthusiastic grunts that lesser men would call laughs but I have higher expectations.

Winnie the Pooh doesn’t settle for stevia just because it’s sweet and I don’t settle for coos – no matter how adorable they are when joyfully shrieked from my five-month-old daughter’s voice.

I spend my days anxiously cycling through a routine of peek-a-boos, tickles, and funny voices chasing the most elusive laugh I’ve ever sought.

Following are the eight most promising ways I’ve identified to (almost) make a baby laugh:

1. Peek-a-Boo

This game mines the treasure trove of hilarity that is child abandonment. Temporarily obscuring her view of me causes momentary panic since she’s entirely dependent on me for survival. The euphoric relief she experiences when I reappear creates a contagious giddiness but falls short of laughter.

This tactic is best used as a series of microaggressions to amplify the child’s reaction with each repetition until she develops a callous and indifferent reaction to both parents’ presence.

2. Raspberries

If you don’t know what ‘blowing a raspberry’ means, be sure to enable parental controls before Googling a definition.

It is best explained as forcing air through loosely closed lips to make a flatulent-like noise with your mouth. Babies do this constantly and find it hilarious when anyone answers their blasts in kind.

I tried playing the trumpet once in fifth grade and found the lip vibrations unsettling. Raspberries give me that same unsettling sensation.

3. Pretending to eat appendages

Cannibalism has been a part of the human tradition since our earliest ancestors first put tooth to flesh. Pretending to eat your baby’s hands or feet is a great way to tap into her primitive comedy instincts.

The vegan alternative to this game is to first tell the child that they have french-fry fingers and baby carrot toes.

4. Mirrors

Mirrors provide everyone the sort of laughs that used to only be available to identical twins. My favorite variation is to make eye contact with Senita through the mirror until she forgets that I’m actually behind her.

While many babies react to this phenomenon with laughter, she shifts her wide-eyed stare back and forth in disbelief until I talk reminding her which one is real. At least it makes me laugh.

5. Funny Voices

I’ve got a large repertoire of funny voice impressions ranging from Looney Tunes to the Three Stooges, but the one that most gets Senita animated is United States Senator Susan Collins.

At least eighty percent of pictures where Senita is smiling have been taken with my hoarse and shaky impression of Susan Collins bemoaning that “Senate bipartisanship is at stake!” Although I pronounce it as “thenet bipartithanhip is at thtake!”

6. Tickling

The lighter side of nonconsensual touching brings a slew of sensory experiences to our would-be giggle fests. The best results to date have been using blades of grass on the bottoms of her feet and a stuffed llama coif that left bits of hair stuck to her drool-filled face.

7. Bouncing

It is very important to never, ever shake a baby. But toeing the line between jostling and trauma gives parents and children a thrill that puts smiles on everyone’s faces.

8. Your own shame

Senita senses my desperation; I’m sure of it. If she’s anything like me, she’s judging me for it.

Vulnerability doesn’t play well with Gaffneys.

When I hit the end of my routine dizzy from spinning and hoarse from too many Susan Collins calls I soothe myself by hoping that Senita is instinctively raising the stakes by withholding the very thing that (with each passing day) I work harder and harder to get.

Two of the oldest rules of comedy are that she who laughs last laughs best and that the best is yet to come. I’m sure of it, or my name isn’t Thuzan Collinzth.

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