Men Means... Lot's of Mans.

I was sitting/hunching over my computer- soggy posture when Athena walked and and noted my stomach. I watched her face change to one of sudden curiosity as she did a double take. She then asked, "Do you have a baby in your tummy? ...You can’t have a baby in your tummy right now. Carson is not in. He’s sleeping in his bed. You can make a baby another time."

Later she was playing with some sticky paper. She was talking to it and I caught, "And I say, 'get off my hand! Get off my hand! You stupid-naughty-paper!'"

I like hearing her thoughts stream from one idea to the next. Yesterday while we ate lunch she said, "You love me mom. I’m a baby to you. I’m not a cream cheese, or a bubble head, or uh eyeball. I love eyeballs and I can choke on them. (She’s talking about Halloween eyeball gum. And we were eating cream cheese. Not sure where the bubble-head came from though.)

Athena knows that Conrad is a man but she wasn’t familiar with the plural form ‘men’ when I used ‘men’ in a sentence.
She asked, “What’s ‘men’ mean?”
“Oh... man?” I asked her my eyes level with hers.
“No men!” She corrected.
“Men means… lots of mans.” I said simply.
She understood perfectly. “Ohhh,” she said with a smile.

It’s easy to tell when Athena is plotting general naughtiness; Just now she closed the office door so I wouldn't see her getting into things she shouldn't. Sometimes I let her believe for a while that I don’t know what she's up to- mostly I only do that when I'm too tired to stop her.

Sometimes she will say, “Mommy, go away. I want to be awone,” (so she can be naughty.)
"Do you want me to go away so you can push the bar-stool over to the pantry to get gum?"
"Yes" she says honestly. I love the sweet honesty for now. That'll change but I enjoy it for now.

A few days before Halloween she was in the office, pooping behind the door. That's where she poops- behind that door as she wears a pull up. She won't use the potty for that yet, so I let her use a pull up for now. Anyway it must have been roughly 7 minutes she was there as I busied myself in the kitchen. I realized it was too quiet and that she must be up to something. Sure enough, she had relocated to the office closet where the Halloween candy was stashed, and she had inhaled eleven or twelve peanut butter cups in that short space of time.

Just now she closed the office door while I typed in here. Then she pushed a bar stool across the kitchen floor. (I know from all the way upstairs when she is being naughty because I can hear the bar-stool scraping across the floor.) This time she climbed up to get a sucker off the counter. When she opened the office door again with a big fat sucker in her mouth I gave her a look that caused her to pause and wonder about her status. Was she in trouble? Was I okay with her sneakiness? She squirmed under my all-searching eye. You could see it in her sweet little face. She whispered humbly, “It’s okay. It’s own-ee a little bit naughty…. You’re own-ee a little bit mad.” I was enjoying the moment. I stared at her with a blank expression and she tried to convince harder, “Mommyyyy!! Your own-ee a little bit mad!” She was hoping to persuade me to be fine with it. I broke a smile and laughed. She got away with the sucker. Well, I can’t get after her for every little thing!