The World According to Madeleine

During brunch, as she spies the eggs on my plate:
"Aunt dinnew! Aunt dinnew!" (We regularly have eggs & spinach on Tuesday night for dinner, so apparently to her dinner means the type of food, not the time of day during which said food is eaten.)


Immediately following a collision between my elbow and Julia's head:
"Careful! A head is a CONK!"


While at the zoo, gazing at the sleeping lion:
"Lion! Lion is a NIGHT. Night!"


While at Creative Movement, looking at one of the painted murals:
MADELEINE: Hi! (to some random woman sitting by the mural)
WOMAN: Hi!
MADELEINE: Apple! (pointing at the tomato on the mural.)
ME: That's not an apple, that's a tomato.
MADELEINE: Aunt eat! Bite!
WOMAN: You can't eat it, it's just part of the wall!
MADELEINE: Aunt eatin' a WALL!


While watching Ethan and Julia hiding under the big fleece blanket:
MADELEINE: (trying and failing to lift the blanket to see them) Closed!
ME: The blanket is closed?
MADELEINE: Closed! Aunt open! Aunt open a gate!
ME: You want to open the gate? That's a blanket, honey.
MADELEINE: Banky is CLOSED! Aunt open a gate!
I'm guessing she was just equating her feeling of being trapped and out of the loop when we're on the other side of the safety gate to the way she felt about being outside of the blanket, because if you ask me, two blob shapes underneath a big brown blanket don't really look very much like a safety gate at all.