This is Elaina. She has just turned one, and she likes health food. She is currently enjoying a stick of celery. She prefers it to the birthday cake on her tray. She is sort of good at sharing her presents with her older sister, who has a tendency to help herself anyway. Elaina’s not that into boys.
Because she is one, she is almost a real, functioning toddler. Now, she expresses her emotions in word form for the first time. “Happy, happy,” she says, and she smiles and waves her hands and kisses her reflection. Her older sister tells me: “Elaina is a very big baby,” and her parents say “no, she’s a little girl, because she’s one.”
Chloe nods and without missing a beat, she tells me “Elaina’s a little girl.” That’s Ok, because Chloe is a big girl. She’s two and half years old. She is potty trained and sleeps without her binkie and everything. “With my friends, I’m a big girl,” explains Chloe.
“Uh huh,” I say “And with Aunt Katie and Mimi and Papa, are you a little girl?”
“Yeah,” says Chloe. That’s what she was driving at. She shrugs at the relative nature of the universe and flips through her cardboard book.
Botkin Creative 