The Girl Who Isn’t Ready

She sits on the lawn by the lamppost with her baby and her sandwich. Mommy takes generous bites as Baby looks on, wanting what she’s having instead of the goop in the glass jar. “I don’t want that,” Baby would say if she could. “No, get that spoon away from me. I want what you’re having.”

Baby reaches for the sandwich as her mother takes another bite. Mommy’s eyes are on the water and the ducks. She doesn’t notice the silent pleas of the child.

The baby moves on, as babies do, inspecting each hair on Mommy’s arm individually. She squirms when Mommy wipes away the mixture of spit and snot and apricot paste, her valiant efforts to make some sort of statement with her messy face all in vain.

Oh no. Not the spoon again.