Mirror
The first thing I heard was her giggles. It was the sweetest thing. Then I peeked from the side and there she was. The first thing I noticed was her two pointy pigtails, very thin and held neatly with elastic bands ornamented with apples. I loved apples. They were delicious. Her eyes, they were big and round and full of laughter, shining with content happiness. I inched forward and we were face to face. I smiled and noticed she did not have any teeth. Her gums were bare. Still, she was as sweet as anything can be. Her cheeks were chubby and rosy. She giggled at me and had a little drool. I did not mind it. She had a bib on her. It had a bear on it. I loved bears too. They were cuddly and cozy to be around.
I extended my hand and she reached out for it. Her arm was doughy and her hand was really small. Her fingers were much smaller than the baby carrots. I said ‘hello’ and she said ‘hello’. I asked her ‘wanna play?’ and she asked me ‘wanna play?’ I thought we must be playing ‘echo’ already. She was really fast. She was able to repeat exactly what I said as fast as I said it and she never left a syllable. I laughed until I fell on my back. She fell on her back too.
I know, now we were playing ‘follow me’. I made a circle and so did she. I lied on my back and she did too. I move towards her and she moved towards me until our heads touched. I offered her one of my toys and amazingly she had one exactly like mine and offered it to me! We both giggles so much that they burst into loud ‘quack’ and ‘agh’ and slowly quiet to ‘humm’ and ‘brr’ and ‘mrr’.
My toys had rolled to the side and I wanted to get it. Then she came up with the peek-a-boo game. When I went to the side, she did too. And I did not know how but we always ‘boo’ at the same time. This is fun.
I wanted her to come over and have a look at my soft toys collection at the other side of the room. Yet when I turned around, she thought I did not want to play anymore and turned away. So I stayed and sat closer to her. I thought maybe she would like me to come over and look at her toys instead. I crawled towards her but now she wanted to come and see my toys. Finally we decided to sit and continue talking.
I wanted to touch the red apples on her elastic bands but she wanted to touch my hands instead. Then we came up with a more challenging idea. We tried to align our body parts. Head… shoulders…knees and oops, we both fell on our back when we tried putting our toes together. We did not give up that easy though. We tried doing it from the side and when the toes met, we were literally looking away from each other. We even sat back to back for a while, peeking over our shoulders. When I wanted to get another toy, she seemed ready to leave. But when I faced her, she stayed.
I thought she was getting tired. I was getting tired for sure. It was about nap time. Her eyes were getting smaller and looked dreamy now. I lied on my side and she lied on her side. We touched hands and ‘cooed’ slower and slower. Soon enough I saw her mom coming because I could see her legs and before long my mom had picked me up, gave me a loving kiss and put me down in my crib.
- Siti Hazneza Abdul Hamid
- Siti Hazneza Abdul Hamid
