"It's not a problem."

It might not be as cute as first words or first steps, but Beatrice is developing whole new capacities for duplicity and self-deception.  In general she remains upbeat, positive, and cheerful, but it's sad to see her react to stress in various ways.  A few examples:

1. Beatrice is toilet trained and rarely has accidents - but when she does, she makes up far-fetched stories to explain them ("I think I dropped some water," "I think maybe the dog spilled water," "the seat is wet from the pool") and she'll stick to them even though it's obvious to both of us that I know she is lying.

2. Dev and Beatrice were out together when they saw a hawk.  Dev pointed it out to her and told her hawks fly around looking for mice to eat.
"Hawks eat pretend mice," Beatrice said.
Dev explained that hawks eat real mice.
"I think they will eat pretend mice," she said definitively.

3. Beatrice has a little green ceramic piggy bank on a shelf in her room.  Last night somehow a flashlight was left on beside the piggy bank, so that a single beam of light hit the side of the pig's face and cast eerie shadows on the wall behind it in her otherwise dark room.  Beatrice apparently spent the night in silent fear of it, because when I came in in the morning the first thing she said was, "The flashlight is shining on the green pig."
I went over and turned it off.  I knew she was upset, but trying to make light of it, I said, "Isn't that funny?"
"No," she said seriously, "it's not funny."
Then, after a pause, she added, "It's not a problem.  It's just a loud noise.*"

4. Today Beatrice came out into the backyard and found that the dove's nest was gone.**  I told her the bird had moved to a new house, but she was obviously very upset and asked whether the bird had gone to the hospital.  After a few minutes she asked to go back inside.
"Are you upset about the bird nest?" I asked her.
"No," she said, "I am upset about a different reason" and went inside.

*Obviously the pig didn't make any noise, but she always tells herself that about her other fear, garbage trucks.

**I don't know myself what happened to the bird's nest; I was very sad to see it was gone today.  I assume maybe a cat got to it or perhaps the nest blew away, but the curious thing is that it simply disappeared overnight without a trace - no broken eggs, feathers, twigs, nothing.  But a new (?) pair is setting up a nest in a different part of the yard, it seems.