Conversing At Bedtime

Tonight at bedtime:

MADELEINE: Mama?  Did you know that I'm very ATTACHED to you?
ME: I'm very attached to YOU, honey.
MADELEINE: (wrapping her legs tightly around my arm) See Mama?  Do you see how-
ME: (rescuing my arm)
MADELEINE: Hey!  Mama!  I was being ATTACHED to you.
ME: Well, being "attached" to someone means that you like to be with that person all the time.  And you don't like to be apart.
MADELEINE: (scoffing) Well MAMA.  "Attached" means like you're STUCK TOGETHER.
ME: Right, but when you say someone is attached to her mommy, that means she doesn't like to be apart from her mommy, and she likes to have her mommy around all the time, because that's what makes her feel happiest and safest.
MADELEINE: Well Mama.  That's why I'm never ever gonna move away from you.
ME: Oh yeah?
MADELEINE: But Mama.  What if...you moved to CALIFORNIA?
ME: Then I would miss you!
MADELEINE: Wait.  What if you and Daddy BOTH moved to California.
ME: Well, then who would be here taking care of you and Julia?
MADELEINE: (forlornly) NObody.
ME: Well, that wouldn't be allowed.  Kids NEED a grown-up to take care of them.
MADELEINE: Well Mama.  There's NO grown-up.  It's just me and Julia all ALONE.  So Mama.  Would you move back?

(Uh, I'd like to argue the point that I wouldn't move to California without taking you with me in the FIRST PLACE, you big doofus.)

ME: Of COURSE I would move back.  I would never move away without you.
MADELEINE: And I would never move away without you.
ME: Well, I think you *might* want to move to your own house when you're a grown-up, so you can have a family of your own.
MADELEINE: Well Mama.  I'm gonna marry THREE people.  One is Julia, one is MYSELF, and one is...a husband that I'm gonna MEET when I'm a grown-up.

Well, I'm glad Madeleine has her life all sorted out ARDERY.  Aside from the loop she threw herself in which she imagined her parents moving to California without her, it seems like she's got a pretty stable plan in place.  She'll be wed to her sister, her own self, AND to a yet-unknown man.  Sounds like a perfectly sane and practical plan to me.  That even solves Julia's objection to siblings marrying, wherein Madeleine can't change her last name, because she and Julia ARDERY share a last name.  This way, Madeleine can take her husband's last name and then there's simply no problem with siblings getting married!

To prove just how with-the-program Madeleine is this evening, about fifteen minutes after I said good-night and left her bedroom, I heard her little feet padding downstairs and into the dining room.

MADELEINE: Mama?  I just wanna ask you something.  Is it night-time, or is it daytime?  So Mama.  What IS it?

I'm really not kidding.  She really does live in an alternate universe.