A conversation about anything, something, and nothing.
Actual conversation with Super L, three years old:
[I walk into my bedroom. Super L is standing at my dresser. The Crayola fingerpaints that John purchased last week that I've been too lazy to take downstairs to the playroom are at her eye level, and her fingers are gently touching the box. The paints are still packaged perfectly. No worries].
SL: I wasn’t doing anyfing. [Shaking her head adamantly]
Me: Okay.
SL: I wasn’t doing anyfing.
Me: [smiling] I know. It’s okay.
SL: Did [insert sister's name] tell on me?
Me: [hesitating, trying to remember] Nooooo?
SL: Did she tell you somefing.
Me: No. I don’t… think… so. What do you think she told me?
[Loooooong pause in which her facial expression ever so subtly, almost imperceptibly, changed from concern, to guilt, to calculating, to mischievousness, to composed innocence. A sweet little smile spreading across her face. A spritely little twinkle in her eye. She looks away. She looks back, still grinning.]
SL: Nofing.
Methinks I am going to get a run for my money with her. And it’s going to be great.
Yup. You are pretty much screwed. she’s figured it out already.
Too funny. BTW, those fingerpaints are the bain of my existence. I am bad Mommy pretty much everyday when I say “no fingerpainting today”.