Stitchpop

"Mom?" Gertrude called, running into the living room where I was picking up cups of water abandoned by the kids and dog toys that really hurt when you stub your toe on them.

Gert had an urgent question: "What number comes after eleven?"

"Twelve,” I said. “Eleven, then twelve."

I hoped she was practicing the elusive counting-to-twenty, which always trips her up because she's convinced "fifty-eleventeen" has to figure in there somewhere. But no, she had something more concrete to worry about.

"So Matilda's going to be TWELVE?"

"That's right. On her next birthday."

"She's a lot older than me."

"Well, sort of."

"Great," said Gert, throwing up her hands. "She's going to die before me. Everybody's going to die before me!"

I sputtered something incoherent as Gert turned and ran back out of the room, presumably to get in some playtime with her sister who only had a few decades left to live.