“But why isn’t she potty-trained,” the girl asked, her curiosity stronger than her mother’s admonitions about not being rude to strangers.
To my left, Elaine was barely able to keep a smile off of her face. She enjoyed how my inability to potty-train impacted our relationship. She would much rather play the role of older sister, and she gladly lorded her ability to properly use the toilet over me. And since my younger sister was already nearly my height, despite the fact that I had about a year on her, strangers just tended to assume that she must be the older sister. While I couldn’t hear the mother’s sigh of exasperation in response to her toddler’s tenacity, I certainly could at least imagine it.