Within the hour of my last posting my sniff-hound daughter pulled another one out. She was sitting at the breakfast table. I was in the living room, and Abbie was getting dressed in the bedroom.

"sniff, sniff, snort - daddy, what's that smell?"
Laughing to myself I answered, "I don't know, did you fart?"

"NO! YOU DID!"
"I did not."
"Yes you did, you smell."

Thanks baby.

On another note, she told both Abbie and myself last night about the story behind a hideous brown blotch painting she had made at preschool. They are studying about Autumn and the colors of Fall. They were restricted with paints of the season. Her painting style is to layer color on color over the entire page, so with these hues, she ended up with something that will look like a diaper in a week or so.

Her story was a very precise depiction of a monster in her closet that I killed with a pink gun. Of course there is a lot more to it, but that was the whole of it. When she told me, I was shocked to think that she had picked up this gun notion, but not really surprised considering the five o'clock news and the Newsweek magazine covers that come in our mail. Then she later told Abbie the nearly exact same story. I could feel the air thicken as Abbie responded,

"A WHAT?!"
"A monster." she replied, equally amazed.
"No, what did you shoot?"
"The monster!"
Abbie was defeated and did not want to say THE word to entice the fragile eggshell mind.

So Emma started over from the beginning, and just as sure as I was the first time, she said the word again.

"Who told you about guns?" Abbie questioned.
"Paige has a pink gun." innocence stated. Paige is the four-year old girl next door that has two older brothers.
"Paige and her brothers play with water guns." Abbie clarified.
"Hmm. hmm." Emma mumbled.

Wow! We have been faced with something we weren't planning on so early in age. It disturbs us both, but I am trying to be as level headed about this as possible. I tried to make sure that I did not overreact to the news in hopes that I don't scare the shorts off the little girl so that she doesn't begin to fear being completely open and honest with us regardless of the situation or topic.

whew- and just in time for a second one!!!