“Uh-uh,” my fifteen month old daughter shook her head at me as I held out my hand to take the piece of dog food from her.

“What?” I asked, incredulous. As of yesterday, she was excited to bring me the little treasures she found when I asked for them nicely. Now, twenty four hours later, she was telling me no.

“Please bring that to Mama,” I tried again, reaching out my hand for her. Maybe she hadn’t heard me correctly.

“UH UH” she said much more emphatically, as she shook her head so hard she almost fell over. I stood up to come after her and she turned and ran, her chubby little legs working overtime in her bid for escape.

I caught up to her and grabbed the dog food. Actually, I had to pry it from her hand.

“Thank you!” I said emphatically. She shot me a dirty look, another recent trick she had learned from who knows where, and ran off to play with her blocks.

I just stood there, stunned. I had known it would come at some point, an independent, rebellious little toddler asserting herself, but I hadn’t expected it quite so soon. So I did what any first time mom would do. I called my mom.

I didn’t get the comforting words of reassurance I had hoped for when I relayed the story to her. She just laughed gleefully, a sound eerily reminiscent of the wicked witch of the west cackling. I still get goose bumps when I think about it.

“Karma!” she shrieked, when she finally got her breath back from her laughing spree. “I knew it would come back to haunt you someday.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, somewhat afraid to hear the answer her obviously twisted mind had construed.

“You were very trying when you were her age,” she replied. “And then you were even more difficult as a teenager. Karma is giving you back what you put out. I’ve got to call your grandma. She’s going to love this!”

“How did you come to this conclusion?” I asked skeptically.

“That’s just the way it works,” she responded, sounding frighteningly sure of herself. “It’s what I’ve been looking forward to since you were two. It just came a little sooner for you.”

“Oh,” I whispered. I didn’t know what to say. Could it be true? Could my manipulating past be catching up with me? It did seem that everyone in my family had a story or two about my early childhood years. They all contained me scheming one way or another to get what I wanted. Apparently I had been pretty good at it. Like the instance, at the tender age of three, when I used my budding manipulation skills to steal a tricycle I wanted right out from under my cousin. All it took was waving his favorite truck in front of him while singing, “Here Jack, truck”. His attention gained, I then threw the truck and quickly jumped on the trike as soon as he got off to retrieve his truck. Of course, while trying to restrain her laughter, my mom put forth the effort to quell this new art and immediately took me off the trike. But it was a lost cause. A true conniver had been born.

What I actually did remember doing to others didn’t bode well for me and karma’s repercussions either. In second grade, my teacher wrote in my report card that I had a “sharp tongue and caustic wit.” Prior to that I had given my little brother numerous complexes involving the aliens I claimed I saw outside our bedroom window and the scary ghost who lived in our basement. I thought I had paid my dues for that bad karma when he grew to a well developed 6’3” and commenced to pound me for my prior offenses. Apparently not.

She was right; I was doomed. My mom’s cackling echoed in my head. I looked at my daughter, who was nicely playing with a baby doll. She looked up at me and smiled. I smiled back. Maybe my mom was wrong. Maybe my karma wasn’t as bad as she thought. My sweet little daughter sidled over to me, maintaining eye contact and smiling the whole time. Then, ever so slowly, she reached up next to me and grabbed the forbidden remote control.

“No, no,” I told her for the umpteenth time, stretching my arm out to take it from her. Quickly, she pushed the remote behind her back and began blowing me kisses with her free arm as she backpedaled.

“Hey,” I protested, getting up to follow her.

“Hi!” she cooed repeatedly to me in her sweetest voice between the kisses she was still blowing to me. I was not swayed by her diversion. I was, however, very disturbed. Did she just do what I think she did? She can’t be that calculating already, can she? No, no, pure coincidence. Right?

Erin Litteken is a featured writer for Xomba.com. Read the rest of her work here .