Andrea

by Aaron Baird

The room had a surrealistic ambiance, as if all laws of perspective and sequential occurrence had suddenly become void.  Crowds of animals gathered around a naval officer perpetually playing Mary Had a Little Lamb on a piano that was six times his size while, a few feet away, a family had just sat down to eat dinner in a house that had no doors.  In one corner sat stacks and stacks of books and in another, a group of robots were investigating a beheaded woman lying naked next to her Corvette.  The feeling that I had accidentally stepped into the Seventh Circle of Hell was only slightly dulled by the fact that every object in the room was colored hot pink and lavender.  In the center of the room sat a blond, four-year-old girl, the queen of this dominion, surrounded by her faithful subjects.

When Andrea finally noticed my intrusion into her playroom, her face lit up.  She called out "Uncle Aaron!" like a battle cry and threw herself into my arms.  It was a common greeting between us, but on eI will never stop enjoying.  She told me she was having a tea party and asked if I would join her.  We weaved our way through heaps of broken toys and games and sat down at a short table around which various dolls and figurines were staring off blankly into space.  Introductions were short and sweet.  "Dolls, this is Uncle Aaron.  Uncle Aaron, these are dolls." Andrea then proceeded to serve me tea that I could not touch, taste, smell, or see.  By the look of the crud at the bottom of my plastic cup, it was probably for the best that the tea was imaginary.

Her conversation with her dolls was a little hard to follow since she conducted it entirely in falsetto, but it seemed to consist of different inflections of the same phrase.  After a few minutes of "How was your day, how was your day, how was your day," I began to wonder how she talked to other children her age.

It took some coaxing, but I finally managed to tear her away from her relentless interrogation into the quality of her dolls' day long enough to answer me with, "I say, 'Hi, my name is Andrea.  Want to play?' Then we go and play." Her father later confirmed, "She talks to everyone.  We'll be standing in line at a store and she'll ask the clerk of the other people in line if they want to play.  Sometimes I wish I had a roll of duct tape [to put over her mouth]."

Her outgoing personality has kept her at relative ease about starting kindergarten in the fall.  In fact, when questioned about it, her only response was a spirited rendition of the ABC's.

Although Andrea's life and experiences are individualized, they can hardly be said to be unique.  That is, like all four-year-olds, her reality mirrors an adult's in only the most casual way.  Only by looking at her world as she does could I begin to make sense of it.