Two Pieces of Pie

For all you Yanks who like a slice of apple and a slice of pumpkin – and to make up for the fact that I desecrated your holiday of thankfulness with yesterday’s litany of complaints – I offer these two pieces of Pie:

She’s The Map!

The Pie is a human equivalent to Dora’s Map. At any given time, she knows where everything is in the house. This is not a trait shared by any of the other members of the family. Bub can be looking right at something and still not know where it is; hubby can step over a laundry basket several times without even noticing that it’s there. But Pie – she knows. Lately, her bedtime requests have been accompanied by increasingly specific instructions. “I want the Other Kitty,” she insists (not be confused with “Kitty,” who always stays in her crib). I head downstairs to look for it and hear her voice on the monitor shrieking helpfully, “It’s in the basement! On the chair!”

Her Tender Heart

The Pie has an exacting schedule for her nightly bedtime stories. The first story (or two) is in Bub’s bed; then we move to the armchair in her bedroom for another story (or two); finally, she gets into her crib to read one last story (or two). Lately, her preference has been for this book:


The story revolves around Newton, a young rabbit who visits his cousins and is subjected to some not-entirely-good-spirited teasing because he refuses to remove his hat (a handsome orange toque). At one juncture his cousin Henry decides that he is “weird” and says, “You’re a pain!”

This always causes Pie a moment of distress. “He’s not a pain!” she squeals, scrambling to her feet in protest.

“No,” I agree. “He’s not a pain. Was that a nice thing for Henry to say?”
“Nooooo,” she intones solemnly. Then she edges over to the side of the crib, rests her head on my shoulder and snuggles in, dismayed perhaps at the meanness of which children are capable, or comforted by our joint condemnation of Henry’s words.