Three of kind

Part 2

"Mommy?"

"Hm?" Karina resumes typing her email without sparing her daughter a glance.

"I made cupcakes for you and Mimin."

Karina turns her head and smiles at the play-doh cupcakes Erica is carefully placing on the coffee table. One is pink, green and brown while the other is blue, yellow and orange.

"Aww... so pretty!" she coos, setting her laptop aside. "Thank you, baby. Which one is mine?"

"This one." The girl points at the blue one and carefully picks up the tiny plastic plate, balancing the fake cupcake as she takes it to her smiling mother.

Karina thanks the girl once more with a kiss on her cheek and pretends to eat the cupcake, making loud chewing noises and exclamations about how yummy it is.

"Can I give this to Mimin?" Erica asks, pointing at the remaining cupcake.

"You can but not tonight. She's working tonight."

"Then when?"

"How about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? Mimin's coming tomorrow?"

Karina nods. "She's going shopping with us."

"Really? Yay! I will make her another cupcake then," Erica says and takes Karina's cupcake to reuse the play-doh and 'bake' another cupcake.

"Wow. You're recycling my cupcake for Minjeong? I'm hurt," remarks Karina teasingly and chuckles when she gets no response. "You like Mimin a lot, huh?"

"Uh-huh." The girl nods as she presses the colorful putty into its mold.

"Why?"

"Mimin is funny."

"She's funny, huh?"

Erica nods again.

"What else? Why do you like Mimin?"

"Um..." Erica takes her time, making sure that she has taken her fake cupcake base out of the mold before answering, "Mimin stories."

"Mimin stories? Oh you mean Mimin reads you stories?"

"Hm."

"So you like Mimin because she's funny and she reads you stories?"

"Uh-huh." With one final nod, the girl finishes her cupcake and shows it to Karina. "Mommy look!"

"Wow that's pretty! Good job," Karina praises the girl, rubbing her back. "I'm sure Mimin will like it."

"I like Mimin!" exclaims the girl out of the blue, making her mother laugh.

"I think she likes you too."

"And Mommy," Erica says, climbing onto Karina's lap with her fingers still coated with sticky colorful bits of putty.

"Hm? Mommy what?"

"She likes Mommy."

"What?" Karina laughs and unconsciously blushes, feeling uncharacteristically shy all of a sudden. "Now how did you come up with that?"

"Does Mommy like Mimin?"

Karina grabs the small hands reaching out to touch her face, stopping them before the play-doh can get onto her face. "Of course I do. She's a good friend."

That answer seems to satisfy the girl and she slides down from her mother's lap to continue her pretend baking, completely unaware of the young woman who's staring at her contemplatively with a small smile grazing her lips.