Making Rules

Today Spilly said to me in a testing-the-waters way, "I make the rules in the house."

I looked up from where I was doing dishes. "Uh, no. Your father and I make the rules in the house."

"But I make up some rules."

"Like what?"

"No stealing bread."

"Okay, yes, that's a good rule."

"And no bathroom words." She proceeded to list several that were off-limits.

"That's enough of that," I said. "But I like your bread rule. That is a grown-up rule too, that you can't steal. There's even a law about it."

"What happens if you're a grown-up and you do steal?"

"They can send you to jail."

"To JAIL???" She seemed to think this was both horrible and deeply fascinating. "But what if you're in jail and you want to go to a restaurant?"

"You're not allowed to go to a restaurant if you're in jail. You just have to stay there in jail."

She thought about this for awhile. "But maybe they could take you to the restaurant in your cage."

"No, they wouldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"Well, the cages aren't made for moving around. They just stay inside the jail."

"And the people stay inside the cages."

"Yes."

She thought quite a bit longer. Then she said, "Do reindeer come down the chimney with Santa?"

"No, they stay on top."

"Always?"

"Always."

"Then WHY," she said, hands on little hips, "Did the reindeer eat part of the CARROT?"

It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. Then I realized. On Christmas Eve, we had of course put out cookies for Santa. We'd also put out some baby carrots for the reindeer, all of which had bites out of them in the morning. And how could that happen if reindeer didn't come down the chimney?

"Hmm," I said, thinking hard.

"I know, Mommy," Spilly said. "Santa took it up to the reindeer. And then when they couldn't finish it, he brought it back down again."

"Yes! That's it, I'm pretty sure."

"It is it," Spilly said in a very haughty and dignified voice.

A great example, I might add, of how Mommy's rule was completely overriden by basic logic, and replaced by Spilly's rule instead. Which does actually raise the question of who is making the rules in this house.