Adult life, seen from age 5

My five-year-old Ecuadoran host sister has some new paper dolls. She has just heard that Jeff and I met through dancing, and she wants to reenact this. Her interpretation of how people meet and shack up is fascinating.

She dresses her paper doll and commands me: "You be a boy who wants to dance with her."

I hold up some paper clothes to be a boy. They dance with her paper girl. After several dances: "Now she wants to go home, but you ask her to wait."

"Don't go home. Wait!"

"Okay. Now you have to say, 'I want to live in your house.'"

"I want to live in your house."

"Okay, let's go to my house. But there's a crocodile."

"Ahh! A crocodile! We have to jump over it."

"Okay." (The dolls jump over the crocodile.)

"Now we go home." (They go to a sofa cushion.) "Now you say, 'I want to sleep with you.'"

"What?"

"You have to say, 'I want to sleep with you.'"

"....I want to sleep with you."

"Okay. They sleep in the bed." She lays the dolls side by side and covers them with her hand. She waits silently a few seconds, then crows: "Kukuriku! It's morning."

"Good morning."

"Now you make me breakfast while I put on new clothes."

"Okay. Do you want eggs? Toast?"

"Eggs. I'm going to wear this short dress so you can see my pretty legs."

This repeated for a few sleep-and-breakfast cycles, then she staged a wedding. I don't remember it happening quite like that, especially not the crocodile.