An Interesting New Development

While I was showering this morning, I assumed that Esme was listening to one of her books on CD since the book was blaring loudly from her CD player. When I got dressed, I went into her room to tell her something and discovered that she was gone (her sister was in the room playing with dangerous, inappropriately small toys that could kill a baby, but that's another matter.). It turned out that she had gone downstairs to watch TV without telling me and had left the CD player on so that I wouldn't think she'd gone downstairs.
I was livid for a moment and then was struck by the ingenuity of her plan.
It turns out that isn't the only sneaky area in her life. She announced to me while falling asleep that since her birthday she's been eating 19 gummy bears a day from her secret stash and that she finally finished the last of the bag this morning.
I'm sure that if I found the text of one of those Ames' books about "Your Wacky and Wooly _ Year Old" that it would say something about how five year olds practice deception because they now can. I can't say that I'm pleased about it, though. Esme is no longer as innocent as she was when she was just four, a mere week and a half ago! I do understand that brain development is important and that her learning when it's appropriate to deceive is just as important a skill to learn as anything else (or else her poker-playing skills may suffer).
So, I ended up taking away the remotes and telling her that there would be no more TV today (and maybe the rest of the week, depending on her response), and before she fell asleep we talked about how important it was to put good things in her stomach rather than bad things, since 19 gummy bears might make one feel quite ill.