Dolls of all shades

I spent about an hour holding a ten-day-old person, but she didn’t converse much; on the contrary, she ignored me completely. I was more interested in seeing how her adorable but spoiled four-year-old sister was handling having a higher maintenance member of the family in the house. The older girl paid little attention to the younger girl, carrying on the same attention-getting strategies she usually did, trying to hide her jealousy.

Then, I picked up a piece of cloth off the floor, thinking someone had dropped it, and found a chunk of wood inside - the broken leg of a chair.

"Oh, that's Mikaela's baby," her mom laughed at my single raised eyebrow. "She's been carrying it around ever since Paulina was born." 

Nevertheless, I tried to be attentive to Miki. While their uncle was holding Paulina and oogling over her, I asked Miki if she wanted to sit on my lap. She climbed up and continued drinking the Fanta that she had been holding. I watched it all disappear alarmingly quickly into her tiny belly. 

She smacked her lips in satisfaction, then cradled the empty Fanta bottle and lovingly rocked it back and forth.