Smart or Sassy: Who Can Tell?

A few days ago, out of the blue, Abang said to me, "Mummy, I want cookies."

I wasn't sure what he meant, so I asked, "Do you want the cookie crisp that we bought at Petronas last week? You haven't eaten that yet."

"No la. The other one la." He was starting to get impatient (wonder where he got that from?).

"Um, which cookie do you mean?" I wasn't stringing him along, I was really stumped.

"Yang tu lah, yang cookie tu lah. The one Ant J make for me."

*Ting* The light bulb has come on!

"Oh, ok. Do you mean the big, chocolate chip cookies?"

"Ha, yes, yes. I want to ask Ant J to make."

So I dialled her number and got him to talk to her and ask her himself. Of course, later I had to translate his request so that she actually understood what exactly he wanted.

Bless her, she actually made it! Only thing is, Abang slept over at Atok's house over the weekend. So this morning, when it was time to go to Nenek's house, I called Abang (at Atok's house) to ask if he wanted to go to Nenek's house.

"No, thanks!" Was his short reply.

"But Ant J has made you the cookies you want, you know? We go la, and have some of her cookies."

"Um... but ... you can bring back for me, right?" Smart kid.

"Uh..."

"Ok, bye Mummy!" Sassy, too.

Adik is also quite the cunning little toddler. Here's a regular scene from A Day in Our House:

Adik tries to play with the wall switch. Adik gets reprimanded by Mummy. Mummy moves Adik away from the plug point and distracts him with something else.

Repeat, oh, about 4 times.

Come the 5th time, before the reprimand starts, Adik runs off towards the CD rack and bookshelf. Adik starts pulling down CDs and books, creating a pile of CDs and books on the floor.

"Aiyo, Adik, what are you doing?" Mummy grumbles and mutters as she starts putting the CDs and books back. "You better come and help Mummy put these back."

Hold on, he's not there. He's gone back to the wall switch! Aaarrrrghh!

Has he been reading the same books? The ones that advocate the "distraction" method of disciplining? Must be la!