My 4-year-old daughter, Sophia, is a real hoot.  She’s the stubbornest person I’ve ever met, and she drives me crazy.  But she also delights me.  She has a huge zest for life, and one just can’t not delight in her delight over even little things.  And she comes up with the most off-the-wall comments sometimes.  (Okay, lots of times.)

My husband cooks breakfast on Sunday mornings.  So about a month ago, he made eggs and bacon.  It was good, as his breakfasts always are.  A day or two later, I was cooking some of the leftover bacon for lunch.  (It’s turkey bacon, so it doesn’t work quite like regular bacon.  In fact, it’s technically already cooked, like lunch meat.)  The first side of the bacon took forever to cook.  I flipped it, walked away, and came right back — to find it burnt black.

When we sat down to eat, Sophia said, “I wish you hadn’t burned the bacon.” No biggie.  I wish I hadn’t burned the bacon!

A minute or two later, she says, “Daddy’s a really good cook.  Everything he makes is really good.”  pause  “But you…” (Here I can see/hear her trying to sort out how to word her comment so it doesn’t sound too bad.)  “…well, sometimes not so good.” (Gestures to the bacon.)  I was trying not to laugh, but this is typical Sophia.  (By the way, there was no malice in her statements whatsoever.  She was just being matter-of-fact.)

The following day, she wanted bacon for lunch, and she wanted to know if Ariel could cook it for her.  Ariel didn’t want to, though, so I told her I’d cook it for her in a few minutes.  When I came back to cook it, I found the empty package.  Turns out, she ate it “raw,” because I couldn’t burn it if I didn’t cook it! lol

I would have thought that would be the end of it, but, no.

Last night we went to pick up Ariel from choir practice.  Since it was just the two of us (not even the baby was with us), I thought I’d take the time to ask her some “serious” questions.  One of the things I asked her was, “What does Mama do as a mama that’s good, and what do I do that’s not so good?”  I’m thinking she’s going say that she likes it when I play a game with her, doesn’t like it when I yell — that sort of thing.

After thinking a moment, she starts with, “The thing that’s not good,” (Here I’m thinking, ‘Oh, great.  She can’t think of anything good, but she can jump right in with what I do that’s not good?  Ouch.” But she’s not finished her sentence yet.  She continues.)  “…is that you burn the bacon…”

“…and I like bacon…”

“…dipped in ketchup.”

At this point, I actually did laugh.