On Purpose

Yesterday M went to a birthday party, and as is common with these kind of shindigs, she came home with a bag full of candy and other assorted little doodads. Being eerily mature girl that she is when it comes to sugar, she shared some pieces with her siblings, ate a couple herself, and then put the bag aside to enjoy later. At bedtime last night she went to hide it in my room, as we all know from previous experience that B would likely try to eat her way through the contents after we went to bed.

As a precaution, I took B aside at bedtime and warned her that if she got into M's candy, she would be giving M whatever candy she got for Christmas. B said that she understood and promised that there was no way she would eat M's candy.

Yeah, right.

Sometime after everyone else fell asleep and before Terence got home from work, B snuck out of her room, tracked down where M had hidden her candy, and scarfed five or six pieces, leaving wrappers scattered around as evidence. So this morning, I had a discussion with B. In the end we decided that she would let M choose ten pieces of her Halloween candy as restitution. (The Halloween candy is safely stored at Grandma's house; that's the only reason that it still lingers at this point.) After we decided this, B and I had the following conversation:

B: Mommy, I ate M's candy on purpose.

Me: Oh, you did?

B: I decided that I have too much Halloween candy, and I need to get rid of some. So I ate M's candy so I would have to give her some of mine.

Me (in disbelief): You wanted to give your sister your Halloween candy so you ate her candy?

B: Yep! I did it on purpose so I wouldn't have too much Halloween candy.

Please tell me my daughter is not going to grow up to be a politician.