Note:

This excerpt is part of a longer, unpublished project on language and artificial intelligence.

“Fine,” my dad said. “Take the medicine if you want. If you don’t want to take it, that’s fine, too!”

We three were in the kitchen of our little house in Palo Alto, California. My mom poured the thick amoxicillin suspension into the plastic thimble of a medicine cup. I was not yet two years old and it was my ear infection we gathered in the kitchen to treat. This was not the first dose, so we all knew what we were in for. My dad, a six-foot three Air Force officer and weightlifter held me with one arm and picked up the cup with the other. My mom, she was also in her mid-20s, is a diminutive woman, especially next to my dad. She prepared for what she knew would be a struggle to hold my arms down.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to hold a child of not-yet-two who doesn’t want to be held. I once held my own son while a doctor and nurse tried—tried—to draw blood from his arm. Kids that age have a spastic, writhing technique that cannot be taught and a core strength that borders on super-human.

In one corner were two grown adults. And in the other, a toddler on a mission. As the sun set over the Stanford campus, we were ready to rumble...

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