  We present a consistent second order perturbation theory for the lowest-lying
condensed modes of very small, weakly-interacting Bose-Einstein condensates in
terms of bare particle eigenstates in a harmonic trap. After presenting our
general approach, we focus on explicit expressions for a simple three-level
system, mainly in order to discuss the analogy of a single condensate occupying
two modes of a trap with the semi-classical theory for two-mode photon lasers.
A subsequent renormalization of the single-particle energies to include the
dressing imposed by mean fields demonstrates clearly the consistency of our
treatment with other kinetic approaches.
