I discovered them by accident as we were leaving my niece-in-law's house. We had had a good time (although, thanks to an accident that closed a major road I had to take to get there, we completely missed the christening itself), and Sam had done a great job playing by herself and with lots of other kids.

Pop Gulli was carrying baby Noah out to the car in his car seat, and I was walking beside Sam. I put out my left hand and wiggled my fingers. It took her a few seconds, but then she put her fist into my hand.

I chuckled at her and said, "Here, silly, open up your fingers," and as I started to help her do it, she yanked her arm away from me. "No, Mom, don't just open my hand. I don't wanna, there's just a ..." and she started babbling pretty much incoherently.

That's when my Mommy Sixth Sense kicked into uber-high gear.

I stopped dead, snagged her wrist and pried open her fingers. There, popping open in her little red hand, were three orange and red dinosaur sponges. They poofed up quickly, and one sailed off her palm and onto the driveway.

Me (getting down to her eye level): "Samantha, this is called stealing. Do you know what stealing is?"

Sam (not looking at me): "No."

Me: "Stealing is when you take something that doesn't belong to you without asking the person who really owns it if you may have it. Did you ask Eric and Alex" -- they're two of her cousins -- "or their mommy if you may take these?"

Sam (now looking at me with the most innocent eyes she could manage): "No."

Me: "How would you feel if they came to your house and took away some of your toys without asking you just because they wanted them?"

Sam: "I wouldn't like it."

So I took her back inside and made her hand them to Eric and Alex's mommy and tell her what she had done.

And, to my infinite surprise, she did it.

No arguing. No tantrum. No huffing and puffing or flopping like a rag doll on the floor. She handed them over, said she was very sorry that she had stolen them and knew she shouldn't have, and asked her to give them back to Eric and Alex.

On the way out, I praised her.

Me: "You did a great job admitting what you did. It's hard to tell somebody that you did something wrong or that you lied."

Sam was calm through the whole thing, which makes me wonder if it had the effect I was going for. And I've had three people since then tell me that they think I made it into too big a deal and should've just let her have them, especially since they were just cheap, floofy sponges.

What do you think? Did I do the right thing? How have you handled it when you've caught your preschoolers lying and/or stealing?