So we were enjoying another dinner together and I needed some spice.
Abby, can you pass the pepper please?
No.
Excuse me?
No thank you? I don’t want to.
Okay, so this answer has the breath of some things we teach Abby:
* be polite
* be honest
* let us know when you don’t want to participate.
The fine line between not wanting to participate and simply accommodating a micro-request is still, for her, a little gray. While I may have been taken aback I was also bemused and I retorted with a twinge of sarcasm.
You can’t put your fork down and hand me the pepper?
no [almost imperceptibly]
[with a bit more sarcasm and a wry smile]
Can you move it with your mind then?
I thought that was the final word and I prepared to get the pepper myself but with a twitch of her eyebrow and a small tremble of effort Abby fleetingly engaged the inanimate pepper mill with her formidable mind. Turning to me she answered decisively and honestly.
No.
[after the laughter started she laughed with us and continued]
I can’t!
I have to remember that sarcasm is still a few years away, but the interplay between adult sarcasm and children’s honesty may be ninety percent of the content for child humor columns, so I keep at it.
Recognizing the actual effort of her attempt, I reached the pepper myself.
She likes me retelling this story.
blief 
Wonderful story, I would have liked to see her try to move the pepper with her mind!
As the teacher that I work for says when I exasperate over what seems like a reasonable request, ” . . . it’s all a matter of maturity.” What I am not 100% sure of is it my maturity or their maturity? Hmmmm.
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Yes, “Mom”, I agree that the matter of maturity, and in whom, is a question dealt with all too frequently as one grows older and engages the curious machinations of children of seemingly younger and more precocious ages. Many times it is my maturity that is subject to question. The Grand Mother reminds me that “he/she doesn’t have a 40-year old head on his/her shoulder!”
Abby was just exercising her right to be independent. Actually, I’d bet that she was experimenting with how far she could go with her Dad. Better decide now where to draw the line, Dad!!
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