Schoolwork? No. Alubus? No. Poor dwarf hamster doesn’t get much attention from her these days. Piano? No. She conveniently forgets about piano – she’d be a prodigy if she practiced, but she doesn’t practice, so she definitely wasn’t thinking about piano. A new story she’d like to write? Perhaps. How she was next going to bug Sophie? Unlikely, because she’d be smiling if she was thinking of something so nefarious.

But there’s something about this photo that I love. Maybe it’s the moment of calm reflection it depicts or the fact that she didn’t know I was taking it. Or maybe it’s because she starting to look less like a kid and more like a tween. When I look at Chloe in this picture, my mind projects a few years into the future. To a Chloe in high school, starting to think about college. The years will go by quickly, just like these first nine years have sped by at lightning speed.

My baby Chloe. Not so much a baby anymore.