Almost a year to the day after Scorch was born, Dancer was born. Dancer is one of my best friends (and neighbor’s) daughter. When Dancer’s mom had to go back to work after she was born, Dancer came to our house every day to be watched by our nanny.  A year and a couple months after Dancer was born, the Bean came along.  For a year, the three of them were watched at my house and were as close as siblings.

Scorch and Dancer were the big kids and Bean the baby.  The two of them were best friends and played everything together.  When Dancer was three she started at a new day care and while the kids don’t see each other daily, they are still good friends.  Up until about 6 months ago, it was still the two of them and then Bean, the baby, tagging along.

But now the Bean is older- she’s closer to 4 than 3 and Dancer, very much a girly girl, gravitates to her instead of Scorch when the kids play. The girls do all the stereotypical things that girls do together- like play dolls and have tea parties.  Scorch is suddenly the odd man out after being the ring leader for so long- something he’s not at all happy about!

None of that was more apparent then when we went out to dinner tonight. My friend and I sat at a table by the kids, but we let Scorch, Bean & Dancer be by themselves. They had some things to play with (cars, coloring stuff, etc) but they obviously couldn’t run around so we told them to make conversation.

Hey Dancer, do you know who the Flash is?

Oh. Well, who’s your favorite super hero?

Have you ever seen Ben 10? You’d like Gwen.

What? No- I don’t like princesses.

Do you want to play cars?

No- this is not the baby car! They are all cars- they shoot each other and crash into each other, they don’t live in a house together.

Mom- why are the girls giggling again?!

And on and on. Too bad poor Scorch didn’t think things were nearly as funny as we did!