There is a rumor going around at Daughter G’s school that I’m pregnant, mainly because G told everyone I have a baby in my tummy and she’s going to be a big sister. Now, we all know this can’t possibly be true, as my womb is covered in cobwebs – the most exciting activity in there is an occasional tumbleweed blowing by – but poor little G is dying for a sibling.
Although there is no little one on the way, I can very much imagine what it’s like to have another child around. I know this because I take G and her friend to ballet each week, and this is what I hear from the backseat.
You’re not the boss of me.
You’re not the boss of ME!
No, YOU”RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!
NO, YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!!
Four-year-old girls are obsessed with who the boss is and isn’t.
Then there is the inevitable post-ballet Happy Meal fight.
I want that toy.
No, I want that one.
It’s mine!
NO, MINE!!
I have actually parked and walked back to the drive-thru window to beg the teenage cashier for 2 identical toys. Please, you must have another purple My Little Pony in there somewhere! No, that one is purple with yellow hair; we need a purple one with PINK hair!
Lots of people think it’s selfish for you to not have more children if you’re able to. I know this, because people will tell you right to your face. I love it when strangers give me advice. It usually shuts them down when I say my rehab counselors don’t recommend it. (That’s not true, by the way, but it works to get people off your back. You should try it.)
As a consolation prize, we got little G a cat. (Also a fish tank, but I don’t like to talk about that since our aquarium seems to be a place where fish come to commit suicide.) It’s sort of like having a baby, as we are constantly protecting the cat from the terror of an overly enthusiastic 4-year-old – but without the post-partem depression and stomach staples, which I consider a real plus.
P.S. Today marks Day 4 on Universe Watch. No word from the universe so far.
