Cleaning?

Yesterday evening, Sophie stood up and said, "Mama, I want to clean." I was impressed. So my silly little girl was starting to learn the value of packing away. She then started tossing pillows and stuffed toys on to the bed while saying, "Look Mama, I'm cleaning. I'm cleaning!"

My elation quickly turned into horror. "No honey, you aren't cleaning! You're messing things up!" Our neat arrangement of pillows and stuffed toys (which Yaya and I worked so hard to maintain) was completely ruined.

I did not realize that there was an deliberate design to all this. Once she had dumped everything on the bed, she pushed me away and said "Go to the floor Mama!" I grudgingly got off the bed and sat on the floor to watch her. She proceeded to build an elaborate fortress made up of throw pillows, toy rabbits, dogs, and bears, and the big hotdog pillow from Papa. When she was finished, she declared, "I'm done, Mama! It's clean!" Tickled pink by her achievement, she lay down in the middle of her fortress, and closed her eyes as if to sleep.

In the dictionary of Funny Fairy Sophie, cleaning = fortress building. That's noted.