Great God of Meddling Mothers forgive me, but when I dropped Jackson off at school one day last week expecting him to run up to his best pal, Caitlin, and get his morning hug, but instead he hid behind my leg and said quietly, I don't want to play with Caitlin, while Caitlin stood two feet away and said to me, I don't want to play with Jackson, well, I just about dropped an ovary. A fight?! About what? Armed with almost no information and unable to broker a quick détente ten minutes before work, I turned helplessly to Miss Rachel, pleading that our little best friends weren't talking today and What Are We Going To DO ABOUT IT? Miss Rachel, taciturn and schooled in the vagaries of the two-year-old heart, was like, Really? Huh. Well, we'll keep an eye on them, we don't want anyone to lose a limb, Mrs. Kennedy. *snort*

The implication being that it was up to them to settle their subtle complaints.

So yesterday we walked into the playroom with Jackson wearing last year's Paul Frank Monkey Hat and Caitlin, enthralled, wanted to tie it under his chin. Too little to know how to make a bow, she simply took the two cords and twisted them, and twisted them and twisted them until Jackson's chin fat was bulging out the top. And she kept twisting while she looked at me and said, Are you Jackson's mommy? And I said Yes, you know I am. And she said, Are you a nice person? And I said, Um, well, most of the time. And then she leaned in to me, holding tight to her lethal little macramé project, and said, I LOVE JACKSON. I LOVE HIM. And Jackson, who'd been more concerned with the tightening noose than our turn of conversation, wrested his face toward me and pleaded hoarsly, Make her stop.