She gets ice cream. We get chicken and pasta?

Elysha explained to Clara that the new baby will be sleeping in our bedroom for a while after she is born. Clara began crying. She said that she wants the baby to sleep in her room.

“When the baby’s older, she can sleep in your room,” Elysha said. “But for now, the baby will wake up a lot at night, crying because she will need to eat because her tummy is very small, and we don’t want her crying to wake you up all night.”

Please note that we don’t actually know the sex of the baby, but Clara insists that it’s a girl, so we concede the pronoun to her rather than fighting over it.

Clara said, “When the baby is crying, you can give her milk and you can give me ice cream to stop us crying.”

Smart girl. Huh?

Elysha asked, “Well, what if I‘m crying?  What do I get?”

Clara thought for a second and then said, “Hmmm… you get chicken.”

“Chicken!” Elysha said. “What if I want ice cream?”

“No,” Clara said. “You get chicken.”

“What does Daddy get if he wakes up crying?” Elysha asked.

Clara thought again and then said, “Daddy gets pasta.”

Had she offered me ice cream, I might have taken the deal and stuck the baby in her room. But as it stands, she just negotiated herself out of ice cream condolences.