My little post-modernist

When I had children I expected to have to teach them truth at some point--as in telling the truth versus lying. And, we have had some lessons on that in our house. However, John, recently, has been taking the matter of what truth is to an entirely new level. There was a time this last week that I actually thought that maybe he had become a post-modernist. It all started a few weeks ago. We were on our way to the doctor's office (imagine that :) ). We have to go over the river to get to our pediatrician's office. So, as we were crossing the river, John said that he saw a sailboat. There was no sailboat where he was looking. There was, however, a very large buoy. I said, "no, John that is a buoy." His reply "No, mommy, that is a sailboat." After several exchanges mirroring the above statements, he finally said "Okay, mommy, how about if you call it a buoy and I call it a sailboat. It can be a buoy for you and a sailboat for me." (How's that for relativism?!) It was at this point that I said "Well, you can call it whatever you want, but the truth is that it is a buoy. You would be lying if you insisted that it was a sailboat." I think he eventually got it because the next time we crossed the bridge, he very emphatically told his sister that it was indeed a buoy. Well, this last week on our way home from dropping the girls off at church, he was in deep thought in the backseat. Finally, he posed this question "Mommy, can I call yellow white and white yellow?" "No, John, the color yellow is yellow and the color white is white." Of course the next questions were "Why, mommy?" And "Who named the colors?" It was at this point that I answer like I do a lot of times as a mom "I have no idea, John." John: "I want to call yellow white and white yellow." And so I again explained the matter of truth. Needless to say, we have been reinforcing with him where he can find Truth, but I do think he will give his philosophy professor in college a run for his money--not to mention the kind of challenges he will give me before he leaves home. I should probably brush up on my apologetics.