Annie climbed down from the breakfast table, and ran toward where I was sitting on the couch.

“Mama! My baby sister, I going to give her a little princess dress and a little princess crown. And then I going to give her a wobble and feed her with a bottle. And I hug her and kiss her and put her in a little tiny bed.”

The words came out of her mouth like an explosion, and were some of the most articulate and easy-to-understand sentences she’d ever said.

“Okay honey. If you have a baby sister someday, you can do all those things.”

**************

The baby sister talk continued, unprompted, across several days.

“Mama, with my baby sister I will hold her hand and go to the park and swing and I will go down the slide with her.”

“My baby sister, when she goes night night I will sing to her!”

She said something about her baby sister in front of my mom, who looked at me as if to say, “Do you have something you want to tell me?”

“I’m not pregnant,” I told her, “I don’t know what this is about. She’s been saying this stuff for a few days now, apropos of nothing.”

**************

Yesterday Mike was in the office putting together Friends of Maddie shipments for different hospitals when Annie walked in.

“Dada, you doin’ Maddie?”

“Yes, sweetie.”

“Oh…those are Maddie hands?”

“Yes, they are.”

“I can do Maddie hands, see?” She pressed her thumbs together.

**************

I heard her talking in her room. I figured she was playing with her dolls. I peeked in, and saw her sitting in her chair, alone.

“Whatcha doin’ sweetie?”

“Talkin’ to my baby sister! She’s so cute!”

“Annie, what if someday, you have a baby brother? He’ll be cute too, you know.”

“NO MAMA. She a GIRL.”

“Okay….”

“When she come, Mama?”

“I don’t know, honey. Hopefully next year.”

“Baby Maddie come next year?”

**************

A few weeks ago, Mike offhandedly asked Annie if she wanted a baby brother or sister. But because all the pictures we have of Maddie are baby pictures, Annie already thinks she has a baby sister – Maddie. And that is who she expects us to bring home.