Life With Toddler

I've never been certain of how personality and intelligence are developed in childhood, but I'm leaning toward the tabla rasa view at the moment. Toddlers have to be taught everything. Tonight is a prime example.

Things it Would Never Occur to Emmie Might Somehow Kill Her:

• Running into a road
• Examining a snake that is two feet from her face
• Bringing me a spider 3-inches across that she found in her room
• Pulling the dog around by its tail
• Eating after the dog

That last one was classic toddler. She had a corn dog on her plate tonight (what? corn is healthy) and wandered away from it - because unlike her "curvy" mother, Emmie is indifferent to food until shortly before she passes out from the lack of it. Enter Scrabble, the Rat Terrorist. He swooped in and snatched it, pulling it under the coffee table.
"NOOOOO!" Emmie screeched, and yanked it away.
She stared at it intently, and then shook it: "I get the dirties off," she explained.
Then, as I watched in horror, she dunked it in her cup of lemonade.
"What - what are you doing?!" I asked, disgusted. She put one hand up to stop me.
"I jus cleaning it," she said, and then took a bite out of the dripping breading. "Mmm. Iss goot," she nodded.

Dear God.