We had an interesting development come up recently.  Anja found a frog (who they named Kermit), and B let her keep it and even went so far as to make it a little jar-based habitat with rocks, water, and grass.  He instructed her to leave the lid on and not mess around with the frog unless he was there.

Cookie (Kermit had his name changed to Hopper and then Cookie) mysteriously went missing a few days ago.  Along with Anja’s ability to discuss anything related to the frog.  What did turn up, however, was Cookie’s habitat, flooded to the brim with water. 

So I called home this morning and talked to the little squirt with the hopes that I could glean some information on the whereabouts Cookie McFrog.  I apparently caught Anja at a very good time where she was feeling very chatty and was more than willing to discuss things with me.

“Hi Anja.  I heard your frog is missing.”

“Yep.”

“Well, what’s up?  What happened?  Let’s talk about this.” 

“He’s dead.” 

(This is more information than B had gotten – he had no idea where the frog was at all) 

I asked her where he is now.  She said, “He’s gone.” 

“Did you flush him down the toilet?” 

“Yup.” 

“Why would you flush him down the toilet?”

“Because he was dead.”  “How do you know he was dead?” 

“Because I held him in my hand and he wasn’t alive.” 

“Why was he dead?” 

“Because he got out of his jar because I forgot to put the lid on top.” 

“Why was the jar full of water, Anja?” 

“Because he died because he didn’t have any water, so I wanted to give him some water.” 

“And then you flushed him down the toilet?” 

“Yup.”

Funny how I can get a full confession from as far away as I am, but I know if I was home the mystery would remain.  I’ll have to revise my parenting strategies when I get home so I can continue to elicit these sorts of confessions - at least I’m still one up on them on something.