As of late, we've been trying to get Dormouse to drink more milk and to do this, have been using that age-old parenting trick: bribery. Pour a couple of tablespoons of chocolate or strawberry syrup into a normal glass of milk and voila... you've magically transformed it into a container of calcium that any kid will willingly down. She's also been really into her independence lately, so she tries to do everything she sees us do. (If you know the KingofHearts and I... scary!)

Yesterday, she decided that she wanted strawberry milk and that she was going to make it herself. Somehow while I was in the bathroom (why do they always do stuff when you're in the bathroom?!?) she managed to achieve the following complex process of steps:

- Open fridge
- Get full gallon of milk out of fridge
- Get cup off counter
- Pour milk into cup while only spilling a couple of tablespoons
- Leave gallon of milk on floor and refrigerator door standing open
- Get spoon out of drawer
- Stir milk in the cup

It was about here that I walked in on her. She proudly exclaimed that she was "making strawberry milk" and took a big drink then looked up at me completely befuddled. "Mom, my strawberry milk is just milk!" Although she'd managed to get through the entire procedure, she'd missed the step of putting the syrup in and was totally surprised when, after stirring her glass of milk with a spoon as she'd seen me do dozens of times, it didn't magically turn into strawberry flavored milk.

It makes me think about all the stuff kids just have to take on faith. She never questions how the television works, it just does, bringing with it JoJo's Circus, those creepy Higglytownfolk who store random paraphernalia in their pants, and any number of other sweet, sweet, coma-inducing children's programming. (In fact, she's taken to referring to pretty much animated program as "the Disney Channel" - evidence, I'm convinced, of the eventual mind control and global domination we will all one day witness from the Evil Corporation Disguised As The Happiest Place on Earth.)
The remote control - still a novelty to me given my persistent childhood experience of parents yelling at me to come in the living room only to be asked to change the channel on the TV when I got there - is just a way of life to her. She neither questions how it works, nor wonders why things like the cordless phone doesn't also control the idiot box.

Computers are just a way of life for her. She watches me while I'm telecommuting and asks who I'm talking to. I've never had to explain that my coworkers are not tiny beings inside the box, she just gets it... and then hands me an envelope saying, "Mom, I'm gonna send YOU an email."
I know that this won't last forever. That one day, just knowing THAT things are the way they are won't be enough. She'll start to question WHY. And then, it won't be good enough for Mom to just say "don't eat the grass, honey, if everyone ate the grass there wouldn't be any left for the rest us to enjoy". She'll want to experience life for herself and learn on her own and it'll be about things much bigger and more important than whether she gets Strawberry Milk with dinner or has to wait until afterward.

I'm just hoping that I can put it off for at least a couple of years.