Comeback kid

Eve was moving her toys around quite deliberately in her bath the other night. I asked her what she was doing.
"I'm just sortimenting."
"Sortimenting?"
"Sortimenting."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that I'm crazy."

When Eve gets scolded for some minor transgression, she has a rather unusual and effective comeback. Here's an example:
Me: "Argh! Eve, you tore the box! We needed that to keep the cards in! Now we don't have a nice box for the cards. You shouldn't have done that."
Eve: "And then one day, we had a tearing box party!"
Me: "Huh, wha?"
Eve: "We all teared boxes! Yay!"
Me: "Um, sounds fun. Please don't tear boxes unless I say you can."
Eve: "Okay."

She has imagined all sorts of parties, such as a bumping into Daddy party, a throwing mail party, a chasing cat party, and so on. The interesting thing is that she's not being sassy (believe me, this child can be a sassy-pants on occasion). It's like she's realizing that the spirit in which things are done makes a difference. For example, it might be OK to tear boxes at a tearing box party, but it's not OK to tear a box of cards open because you're impatient for someone to help you. Plus, she's making an effort to lighten a stressful moment, which can be a really useful ability in life.

Some time later, I gave Eve an empty cracker box out of the recycling and told her we were having a box-tearing party and that this box was OK to tear. She destroyed it with great relish.