“Look at my baby!” Mae (5 years old) lifts her dress to show her underwear is stuffed with a shirt or two.
“I’m a mermaid. Can somebody stick me back in the sea?!” Tori (4 years old) mourns so despairingly, a big pillow case around her legs and waist as she sprawls on the kitchen floor. Fascinated, Mae comes over. First she shows the mermaid her baby, and adjusts the clothes stuffed in her underwear. But the mermaid just wants to go in the water. So Mae grabs her under the arms and drags her almost a whole foot.
“There, that’s the sea.”
“No it’s not!” Tori admonishes her. “The Sea.... The sea is down there!” Points downstairs. Mae tries to lift and drag her again.
“I can turn into a mermaid too, you know?” Mae isn’t sure whether to make that a demand or a request, so the last words sound remarkably like a question.
“You can?” Tori sounds wonder-filled.
“Yeah!” Mae declares, and my head is full of visions of obscenely misshapen, pregnant mermaids.
“But where are your fins?” Tori asks, bumping toward the stairs.
“Yeah, I got to go find some.” Mae releases Tori at the top of the stair, and Tori slides down them, yelling ‘Byebye! Byebye!’ “I’m gonna go find some fins.” ~2000
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