The first time London uttered the word, we were sitting at the dinner table -- me, my wife, the boy and his 7-year-old sister, Poppy. London had just declared that he was finished with his meal and, not restricted by the rules of eating that the rest of us subscribe to, he began to run around the room, holding a Thomas the Tank Engine figure in the sticky tunnel of his closed hand. "Pussy!" he yelled, Thomas above his head, weighting his fist like a roll of pennies.

My wife and I looked back at him in unison, not dropping our forks, but definitely halting the chew. "What did he say?" she mouthed at me, careful not to alert our daughter that this word had some thorns.

"Hey, London," I called as casually as I could. "What did you say?" I forced a phony smile to throw him off the scent.

"Pussy." He cocked his head. He waited.

"You see a cat somewhere?"

"No."

"What's a pussy?"

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