My daughter is 4. By reflex, I call my child “baby” often. She calls me a pet name that came from toddler logic and toddler mispronunciation. Neither of us is happy about this, but we accept this about each other.

This past year, a little boy got placed in her class who had the boy version of her name. To topic it off, this name recently became gender neutral and her name is obscure in the US. After a few weeks, of being call the wrong name and being polite about corrections, she’s gotten really aggressive about people “calling her the name she likes” as she puts it.

Well… This came to a head this past weekend. Apparently she had had enough of this baby nonsense and she wanted me to call her her preferred name as well. When this happened a lightbulb moment went off on her and I did a reverse uno on her. Sure, I can call you the name you like… if you’ll call me the name I like, which is mom.

What followed is in retrospect a very funny time. Neither one of us was very good at keeping our side of the deal. She reflexively called me my pet name. I reflexively called her baby. We both corrected each other. We have both come to a quiet truce about it where we agree that neither of us will be pleased about what the one is calling the other.

Does anyone else have any funny stories like this with your kid?