Our Little Lot

Peter Pie, our eldest, takes his role in the family very seriously, and as one in a position of such obvious authority over the other three children must, has made use of his power to dictate their every move. He has found subjecting Doodle to his rule of particular interest recently, which, aside from causing a two year old to retreat into a mode of absolute opposition to all authority, has brought rise to new questions about the paradigm in which Peter lives. After all, how can you enforce the truth when you hardly understand it?

This week Doodle's insistence upon renaming practically everyone has prompted increasing concern for Peter as to why he and his subjects are not allowed to call certain adults by their first names and yet are allowed to use nothing but other people's first names, despite the explanation of the "Aunt" and "Uncle" preceding the latter set of names. Of equal concern, seems to be the fact that we use no part of some people's names at all, but rather, such obscure words as "mom" and "dad," or "grandmother" and "grandfather." We attempted an explanation of familial ties, and how certain people are closer to our family than others and assumed his world was set right.

Yesterday, after dropping some friends off at their house, Peter, bursting with frustration, demanded, "Why do we have to call them Mr. and Mrs. when they only live five minutes from our house?!"