New updated version...

If you're from my generation, you can't help remembering the iconic Chatty Cathy. And if you happened to be named Cathy, or any version thereof (as millions of us from that era were), let me pass on my deepest regrets for all the times you were actually called 'Chatty Cathy.' I feel your pain, for it was mine.

Well, the new improved version for our enlightened era is here...Conversationalist Caitlyn.

She is truly a living doll of the four-year-old variety. A natural social butterfly, who makes the rounds at every public event to visit with each person in the crowd. The kid should consider politics.

Oh, and when you pull her string, she looks more like this...


When they hired new staff at her daycare when she was two, the new employee asked how she should keep track of who was who and what belonged to whom, etc. The supervisor pointed across the room, and said, "See that little girl? Her name is Caitlyn; that's all you need to know. She can answer any question you have."

The other day, Caitlyn asked out of the blue, "Mama, do I talk too much?"

Struggling to choke back a laugh, Kasey asked her, "Why Caitlyn? Did somebody tell you that you talk too much?"

"Yeah. My teacher did. And my friends tell me I'm not the boss of them."

So I guess life experience is teaching her that there is a time and place.

But I hope that her natural enthusiasm for communication and personnel management is never curbed.