Don’t underestimate your toddler, let me tell you!  Here’s the story…

Quick question:

What ingredients go into making maple syrup?

Just sap right?

No brainer…

OK, so my 4 year old asks how maple syrup is made, and I’m thinking, “This one’s easy; I’ve got it in the bag” and I started rambling on and on about the sugar maple and tapping the tree and the sap and the buckets and the boiling…

and then I’m interrupted by someone who looks like they know the answer to the question they’re about to ask and know that you probably don’t and that they might catch you not knowing.

“So then you add the butter?” she asks.

“What? No.  No, of course not.  There’s no butter in maple syrup.  Just sap.  Boiling down.  To make the syrup.”

“But when it’s boiling and you need to add the butter, Mama?”

“No, Angel.  No butter in making syrup.”

“Yes, Mama!”  (Getting visibly frustrated and being extremely obstinate and appearing very self-assured.)

Hmmm.  Best to humor her and tell her that we’ll look it up.

So, I google “do you use butter when boiling maple syrup” and…

sure enough,

it mentions using butter to edge the side of the pan in which you’re boiling the syrup to ensure that the syrup doesn’t overflow!

She said, very sweetly (only because she’s not a teenager who’d yell “I told you so”), “I was right?”

“Yes, you were.”

“I know, because I saw it on Curious George.”

Don’t be dismissive with them if they are trying to argue with you and tell you that a fact that you swear up and down is true, isn’t.

You’ll only end up eating humble pie.

Curious George is a clever little monkey.  And so is my little Beach Rose.  And make no mistake about it, they all are!