My little cousin wouldn’t finish her dinner. She had barely taken one bite of her burrito, which was really just a tortilla with a sprinkling of cheese and a speck of ground beef. She sat there and grumbled until everyone else had finished their food, got their desserts, finished their desserts, and all left the table. It was just me and her left at the table.

She wanted dessert (apple strudels, cherry turnovers, and vanilla bean ice cream), but she could only have dessert if she “cleaned her plate,” and she knew that. So she started nibbling, at first. Then she took big bites with her eyes closed, munching fast to get it over with.

Her dad (my uncle) came back into the dining room to see if she had finished. He said to me, “She’s skinnier than her little brother.” I asked her, “Do you like being skinny?” She put her tongue in her cheek and cocked her head up and to the side and thought about it. Then she said, “Yea, because what if someone has to fit in a small space, like if we want something and it went behind a wall and there was only a small hole to get through then nobody would be able to get through and get it, but I could. Or if there was a little doggy door. Nobody else could crawl through it. But I could.”