It's Official: She's a Chick

On Friday evening Mr. Farklepants and the boys headed out to his brother's house for a weekend of blow your mind guitar jamming [insert devils horn hand gesture here and bang your head]. He lives in a more rural area that allows for atom splitting decibels. They're going to Christen the new amp [and probably utilize some wah-wah pedals]. Far away from my ears. And our neighbors ears. And the ears trapped in the folds of 17,000 pages of our homeowners association manual [Stepford isn't even kidding about RULES]. At some point in our harried good-byes, Girl-Child realizes that their trip requires a suitcase. And that she isn't going. While she hugged her oldest brother good bye, somewhere deep in her posterior lobe of the pituitary, a surge of oxytocin - the bonding hormone - was released. And with it? An ass-load of tears. As she held him in a kung-fu death grip, she managed to sob "I'm going toooo miiiiiiiiisssss yooooouuuu". See, it wasn't so much that she wasn't going with them that had her all acting like a girl; it was that they weren't going to be with HER. This reaction was so unlike her. Sure she's a little more sensitive than our boys and easier to upset, especially if she's in trouble, but she's just not terribly emotional. Because I have witnessed other little girls her age and I'm like, "Are you serious with this? Oh my stinkin' heck, get over yourselves already. DRAMATIC much?" -see how empathetic I am? Who's looking for a nanny? So it was completely uncharacteristic and bizarre that she just didn't know what she was gonna dooooo without "her guys". And all of my suggestions about what we can do over the weekend as just us girls was not filling the void. It took a solid 30 minutes to talk her down and by that time I'd convinced myself that she was PMSing and going to start her period in three days. Right around the time I was wondering if they made Midol for children under the age of five and thinking that they should -and if not, then what was the proper dosage of the adult version to administer which was forcing me to do math- Dora the Explorer came on and Boots started singing about how he "speaks Spanish and English too, I like them both; how about yoooouuu?" - There may be times where I want to tell Dora: Put that in your star pocket, sister! But this time she made things all better. And then when I told Girl-Child that her auntie was going to spend the afternoon with her while Mommy spent that time with friends, she spent the remaining hours asking me when I was going to just leave, already. Whatevs. Mood swings.

p.s. My past and present tense is all over the place in here. Thank goodness I'm not turning it in for a grade.