Christopher Meloni Shares Hilarious Belated Father’s Day Gift From Daughter Sophia

Law & Order: Organized Crime star Christopher Meloni always shows off his fun side on Instagram, proving that the tough-guy personality for Det. Elliot Stabler really is just an act. In one of his latest Instagram posts, Meloni made this clear by sharing a hilarious photo of his daughter Sophia Meloni’s Father’s Day gift. Meloni and his wife, Doris Sherman Meloni, are parents to Sophia, 20, and son Dante, 17.

The post showed Meloni and Sophia posing with a framed tweet from critic Matthew Zoller Seitz. Earlier this month, Seitz responded to a viral Twitter prompt asking for the best celebrity sightings. “I saw Chris Meloni, one of the toughest tough guys on television, failing to control two toddlers at a brunch at Columbus Circle circa 2007,” Seitz wrote. Those two toddlers were Sophia and Dante. Sophia framed the tweet and included a picture of herself with her brother as toddlers. Meloni called it the “best gift ever.”

Meloni’s fans loved the post. “Not even the toughest zaddies can control crazy toddlers,” one fan wrote. “Not so tough after all a real gentle giant guy,” another added. “This is awesome. Well played. Well played,” another Instagram user added.

Sophia’s godmother is Meloni’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit co-star, Mariska Hargitay. She was born in March 2001, over a year after SVU debuted. “The birth of his first child and being privy to his amazing, solid relationship with his wife, before I had that for myself — I think that Chris and Sherman played a really big role for me, to see this really stable couple that loved each other,” Hargitay recently told PEOPLE. “And it made me feel even safer with him, as opposed to: ‘Great guy—but single.’ Or ‘Great guy — except for his romantic life.’ Instead, he’s this man who is as solid as a rock, and who is that rock in his relationship… And I got to lean on it when I needed to. It was like family.”

Sophia did not share a public message for Father’s Day on her own Instagram page, but she did publish a flashback photo to mark Meloni’s 60th birthday on April 2, proving that a sense of humor can be passed down. “Twin spirit is 60 today,” she wrote. “We share a passion for dress-up, a boyish obsession with Elvis Costello and just about everything else. Love you always.”

Meloni returned to the Law & Order franchise this year to star in his own spin-off, a decade after he left SVU. In Organized Crime, Stabler is a member of the Organized Crime Control Bureau, which seeks to stop organized crime rings in New York. Unlike the other Law & Order series, Organized Crime is serialized, focusing on an ongoing case for its first season. The show was picked up for a second season, which will debut this fall, alongside the new Law & Order: For the Defense and SVU‘s 23rd season.