Full of It

I'm slowly starting to realize that Norah is a little person, rather than just my little snuggle monkey. She surprises me every day with her thought capacity, that is, what she all understands and how she makes decisions and her favor over one thing or another. It's amazing. I know it's kind of dumb, but it's difficult for me to think of her as a little person, rather than an I'm-hungry-tired-wet-comfortable-uncomfortable-amused little baby. She's becoming so much more complex.

And thusly, she has finally discovered that her mom's full of shit.

We were coloring the other day. She just learned the word "yellow," and now declares every color to be yellow. She triumphantly held up a crayon and pronounced it yellow, and I gently told her the real color. Then she went for another color.

"Yellow!"

"That's red."

She looked down, unfazed, and grabbed another. "Yellow!"

"Orange."

She dropped it and picked up a turquoise crayon. "Yellow!"

"Blue, Baby."

She picked up the blue one. "Yellow!"

"Blue."

Then her little brows knit together. She still clutched the blue crayon, but looked down with a frown and snatched up the turquoise crayon. Then she looked at me accusingly.

I had dumbed down "turquoise," thinking the word was too hard to learn right now. And now she looked at me like I was either screwing with her or I was an idiot.

"Yellow..." she muttered. Then she took the crayons and scribbled side-by-side, one in each hand, as if she was examining them more closely. Could Mommy be right? Could they both be blue?

I stammered, "See, Honey, they are both blue-ish. They're different shades of blue."

She lost interest immediately when Ryan came in from the kitchen, thankfully, and ran to him. Was this it? Was this the end? Had I lost all credibility? Was I no longer Mommy, Queen of the Universe?

If she sees a butterfly flitting around the yard, she squeals in delight until it disappears. Then she quickly turns to me with a deadly serious expression on her face and says, "More," while smashing her fists together (the baby sign for more). As if Mommy could wave her arm and make butterflies appear.

She points to all the images in all her books and looks at me expectantly to name the item. Curtain. Moon. Mouse. Clock. As if I'm the keeper of all the words.

She calls to me in the night when she can't get back to sleep, and knows that a few minutes snuggled warmly in Mommy's arms will do the trick. The Sandmom.

And now? I'm either a liar or a dumbass. Not very good options. But at least now I know that she's more clever than just a baby, and deserves to not have me dumbing things down for her. And hopefully she's still trust me enough to ask me what letters or numbers she sees. And to summoned more bunnies in the yard.