(“Who’s there?”)
“It’s me.”
AEM is having trouble thinking of five gifts for Christmas. She had thought of two and had three more to go. She listed for me who gives her the gifts — I not catching all the names — and her aunt gives her lots of “surprise” gifts as well.
It’s lovely that at Christmastime a child gets to be perplexed — and is not spoiled — by this kind of abundance. The child knows that she is surrounded by people who love her.
— Adapted from a text message at 9:53 AM CT on 13 Dec 2025
When SWM was extremely young, the card game “War” upset him. He would keep losing against me. His dad and I were unable to make him understand that the game lacks strategy. A win is predetermined by the shuffle of the deck.
A particularly distraught session caused him to break down crying. His dad failed to comfort him. Then I had an idea. I said, “SWM, let’s change the game so that we can look at our cards beforehand”. He agreed.
The game started to go better for him. He began to always win and was much happier. During “wars”, his hauls astonished him. He turned over kings, queens, and jacks! Continually I ran out of cards, and he would “donate” roughly half of his cards to me so that our games could go on.
After several months of this, he grew suspicious. He asked, “Are you being nice to me?” During an early game of this, he told his dad, “Cammy changed the rules!” His dad responded good-naturedly, “That’s cheating!”
— Adapted from a text message at 9:45 PM CT on 15 Apr 2025
Camilla Mei-Fang Kao
A baby cries to get needs met.