Let's all hope she's smarter than she looks...

Sam has officially decided that I am in fact, an idiot.

Although I'm not surprised that a daughter would turn on her mother like that, I must admit, I thought I had at least a decade before the whole "my parents are stupid" thing came to pass. Boy, was I wrong. Eighteen months, and she's just done with me.

It all started with my personal nemesis, the leftover Halloween candy. Now, I love it, but I'm trying not to eat it, and this year, I have the added joy of keeping it away from Sam. She isn't generally allowed to have candy, but with the bowl out there, and a sweet tooth she's developed (I blame G and Grams, not myself, by the way), it's constant begging. Still, I can't bring myself to throw it out, because it's only been a few days since Halloween and we bought a ton of candy--it feels like I'd be tossing little dollar signs into the trash. And I just can't do it. So I have a couple pieces now and then, and send Daniel to work with little piles, and sometimes I let Sam have a treat.

My favorite candy to give Sam is Smarties, because they are low fat (yes, high sugar, but most candy is high fat and high sugar, so I figure this is better), and I can control how many little tablets she can have. Plus, they're too small to be taken out of her mouth and played with, and even if they are removed, they aren't sticky--a lesson I learned from the affectionately named "Tootsie Pop Incident of 2009." So yesterday, I let Sam have some Smarties.

As soon as the last Smarty (is that the singular?) was gone, Sam was pointing to the bowl on the counter and saying "More? More? Mama...More? Puh!? (please)" If she had been saying "Mine" she would have sounded just like those seagulls in Finding Nemo. She just kept doing it.

I crouched down and looked her in the eyes in a way that would have made Supernanny proud, and said "Sam, I know you want more, but you have had enough candy today, and you can't have any more right now. No more candy." I thought it was odd that Sam just looked at me and cocked her head to the side, instead of erupting into a full-blown screaming tantrum--which is her new favorite activity upon being told "no." As an added bonus, tantrums now come with added stomping, completely for free!

But she didn't scream, stomp, or lose the ability to stand on her legs. Instead, Sam walked to the garbage can and opened the lid. She sighed as she reached inside and I exclaimed "Sam, we don't play in the garbage." She looked at me like "I hope you're smarter than you look," and pulled her arm out of the trash with something in her hand. I hate it when she gets garbage back out, but this was particularly embarrassing, since I was chatting on the webcam with my sister and dad, so I had witnesses to my kid's most disgusting habit. I was just hoping she wasn't getting a dirty diaper to show G her "poo poos." There's precedent. Sam, however then came over holding the empty wrapper to the Smarties she had just finished, held it up to me as close to my face as she could reach and said "More mama. More. More."

Apparently, the only way she could fathom me telling her "No" was that I was too stupid to understand what she wanted. So she had to dumb it down a few shades to get her point across. She must have been shocked when after this obvious tutorial, I still said no, because that's when the crumbling, screaming, and stomping started. Because, not only was she not going to get her coveted candy, but Mommy is obviously not as dumb as she looks.
Bummer breaks, kiddo.