Two Little Girls

     Yesterday two little girls took over my house.  They ran shrieking across the kitchen floor at their reflections in the stove.  They left a trail of raisins down the stairs.  They insisted I pretend gobble a delicious concoction of plastic onion, banana and chocolate chip cookies they made in the play kitchenette.
     Sharlene's mom brought her over at 10:30 to play with us because she had to go to a funeral mass.  Shar is two and lives right next door.  She has beautiful, long curly strawberry blond hair and a rosebud mouth.  She calls Clara, "Cara," and Clara calls her, "Baby."
     "Clara, Shar is not a baby.  She's a little girl, like you," I explained.
     "Baby," Clara said.  When Shar arrived, Clara smiled shyly, tucked her chin and stuck her belly out a little bit.  A few minutes later, she tried to climb on her tricycle in front of Shar and fell off.
     Downstairs, Shar found the pink Cozy Coupe with the "princess" license plate.  She hopped right in and attempted to make her way across the floor in it.
     "Would you like me to push you?" I asked, and I pushed her across the room in the Coupe.  Clara, who likes the Coupe but is not particularly possessive of it, helped push at first and then took over the pushing entirely.  When Shar turned to see who was pushing, she was not pleased.
     "I push you!" she said, pointing at me.
     "Runs," said Clara, piling crayons into the back of the Coupe.
     "Shar, would you like to push Clara?"
     Shar sighed and got out of the Coupe.  "I sharing," she said.
     Wilbur the dog came downstairs and wisely left immediately (but not before Shar saw him. "Is dog at?" she asked me after he had gone, shrugging her baby shoulders and spreading her baby hands, palms-up).
     Later Clara indicated she wanted to sit on the potty.  We all trooped upstairs to the bathroom and I took off Clara's diaper.  She did her usual thing: sat on the potty a minute, adopted various expressions of concentration, hopped off, looked inside disappointedly, and busied herself with some bath toys.
     Shar found the letters we stick to the wall in the bathtub.
     "A B C D E F D," she sang softly. "Ach, I J K Elemenogee. K R S D U V, W S S AND Z."
     Clara hustled her against the side of the vanity so she could give her a hug.
    I left to get a fresh diaper for Clara and she and Shar shut the bathroom door on me.  "Hey!" I yelled. "Hey!" I banged against the door for extra drama and rattled the doorknob.  I heard shrieks of laughter inside. Finally I opened the door a little.  They pulled it open all the way, conciliatory expressions on their faces.  Then suddenly they shut it again, laughing uproariously.