The REAL Princess Smartypants

I spent the weekend in PA with my family. We celebrated my niece's fourth birthday.

My niece, Elizabeth, is undeniably both a princess and a smartypants.

She is a PRINCESS because A.) she is gorgeous with her butter blond ringlets, teeny nose, pink cheeks and bright blue eyes. She could be an American Girl doll. And B.) she has us all running around like servants trying to cater to her every whim and desire ("No, I want Pappy to do it." "I want the piece with the flower on it.") because, well, she's so damn cute. C.) She has recently acquired a love for all things pink and girly. And finally, D.) we treat her like royalty.

Don't judge. If you knew her for just one second, you would spoil her to pieces, too.

She is a SMARTYPANTS because, to put it simply, the girl knows things. She knows things that a four year old isn't supposed to know. Like what the word "sarcastic" means. She can do math that gives many second graders a run for their money. She is intuitive about other people's intentions and emotions and body language. Her sense of humor is more developed than many adults I know. And she craves knowledge about things she has yet to understand. She asked, "Daddy, is heaven floating on a cloud in the sky?" (To which my brother lamely answered, "Uh, OK. Sounds good.")

We told her that I was pregnant. First she pouted and said angrily, "No you are not!" apparently feeling betrayed by our conspiracy to trick her. When we finally convinced her that it is true, she lifted my shirt, inspected my belly button and said, "Well, I can't see it." We explained that the baby is teeny tiny right now, and no one can see it. She held her thumb and pointer finger closely together, scrunched up her eyes to peer between the space and asked, "Is it this big?"

A while later she asked the question that I knew would be coming. "But, SuSu, how did the baby get in your belly?"

Weeeelllll, since you asked MEEEEEE..... First I inject myself with high dosages of medication until my ovaries produce a whole bunch of eggs. Then...

What I really said was, "Go ask your Daddy." But when she asked him the question, she re-phrased it as "How do babies exist?" (told ya she's smart!). So he took it to mean how do babies stay alive while in utero? He gave her another lame answer about how the food that the mommy eats also nourishes the baby. Elizabeth let him off the hook and said, "Oooohhhhh, OK." as though she thought that perhaps her Daddy didn't quite know where babies came from either, but didn't want to embarrass him by calling him out on his ignorance.

And when I say that she knows things, I mean she KNOWS (said in a whisper with eyebrows raised, eyes open wide, leaning in toward you) things. About a week before we found out that I was pregnant, Elizabeth said to my mom, "You know, SuSu is going to have a baby." As a matter of fact-ly as if she had said, "You know, dogs have four legs."

Here's where it gets scary. At least for me. After we told her that I was pregnant, her mom asked her, "Do you think it will be a boy or a girl?"

Without a moment's hesitation she replied, "Two girls."

Oh. My. God.

She also suggested that I name one of them Elizabeth.