the sparkly scooter of Somebody Else

We're walking into the park yesterday and Harper sees a scooter with sparkly princesses on it parked just outside the gate and she says, "I want to ride that." No, we're not going to ride the scooter, I tell her, it's somebody else's. She accepts that fairly well, scampers into the park, and goes about the business of sliding. A few minutes later I see a concerned look on her face as she's coming down the slide. As soon as she gets to the bottom she scurries around underneath the slide in hot pursuit of something. Hudson and I follow her to see what it so urgent. It is the little girl to whom the scooter belongs and she has retrieved it and would be riding it if it were not for Harper, who has planted herself in front of the scooter and is saying, "Please get off the scooter, please. It's Somebody Else's. You can't ride it, it's for Somebody Else. Please get off please." (I was, it should be noted, rather pleased with all of the 'pleases') So it turns out that Harper has been thinking for awhile now that Somebody Else is an actual person who has loads of cool toys that she isn't allowed to touch. Somebody Else also tends to leave his sippy cups around, and often, pieces of his snack on park benches. All of it denied to Harper. Somebody Else is not required to share.
Something else (or could it be the mysterious Something Else?) funny happened yesterday. While I was changing her diaper before her nap, Harper was holding her puppy Jeff (who used to be named Wadsworth. It's a long story) and she lifted up her shirt and pretended to breastfeed him. "Jeff wanted some milk," she said casually. Usually Jeff gets a bottle. And sometimes pasta. She has two dolls, Baby Gus and Joshua, whom she condescends to mother about once a week. She has never felt compelled to breastfeed either of them. Or give them pasta. I put a diaper on Joshua last week after noticing he'd been naked for about 3 months.