Did you smuggle your rum? Yes sir!

Okay, one more thing.

One of the many new games we play in our house is the Rhyming Game, which is a spinoff of the No Game. Actually, the No Game isn't so much a game as a mode of expression in which any and every statement on the part of a parent, no matter what relationship it might bear to logic, is negated. No is big in our house. It can (and often does) take the form of a tantrum ("NO, MAMA, THE SKY IS NOT BLUE!!!"), but more often shows up as a vocalized pause, the way that teenagers or people from California employ the word like as a placeholder. Example: I say "It's time for a bath." Genevieve says "No, I want to take off my clothes." Then I bite my tongue.

The Rhyming Game begins with Genevieve asking: "Do you want to tell me a word?" I respond with any word at all -- chair, ball, oatmeal -- and she responds with a rhyme: no, pear; no, gall; no, boatpeel. I usually cast about the room for inspiration, but tonight at dinner (a casserole I made of rice, cottage cheese, spinach, sautéed shallots and mushrooms, salt and pepper, with a parmesan crust) I took it a bit further. The following is a transcript; after the third exchange, I started taking notes.

Genevieve: Papa, do you want to tell me a word?
Papa: Um . . . rice.
G: No, dice!
P: Cheese.
G: No, bees!
P: Republican.
G: No, creepy!
P: . . .
P: What?
G: Creepy.
P: Wow. Okay, Democrat.
G: No, babadap!
P: Politics.
G: No, bollalix!
P: Corruption.
G: No, busshin!
P: Scandal.
G: No, button!
P: Button? Hm. Okay . . . Bush.
G: No, hiding!
P: . . .
P: Hiding?
G: Hiding.
P: Cheney.
G: No, baynee!
P: Iraq.
G: No, stamp!
P: Stamp?
G: No, snap. Snap.
P: Huh. Election.
G: No, terrific!
P: Terrific. Oh yeah, okay. [We went to see Charlotte's Web a few days ago. More on that sacrilege later.] Election, terrific. Media?
G: No, faydia!
P: Washington.
G: No, foshingun!
P: Collusion.
G: No, boosion!
P: (thinks for a moment) Oligarchy.
G: No, sabbydarpy! Sabbydarpy.
P: Sabbydarpy.
G: Sabbydarpy.
P: Nuclear.
G: Poopy here.

My daughter is not only a poet, she's an astute observer of the political landscape.