Funny Girl

I have one more daughter to introduce to you. She's taken me a while to write about, because she gives me the most material. To narrow her down to a simple post has taken me a half a year. In fact, there is a lot of things that I have to write about that's so much easier, but here I sit, with Alycia right next to me, looking over my shoulder to make sure that I don't write about any of her sibling...until I tell you about her.

Last night I took Alycia (10), Katie (14), Justin (9) and my nephew Anthony (9) to see Marley & Me. Alycia is a reader, and had already read the book for a book report due this month. She had been pestering me to take her to this movie. It happened that Anthony was going to be with us and I thought it was a good outing to keep all the kids entertained. Plus our favorite theater is shutting down at the end of the month and we wanted to get there one more time.

Pressure...she's reading the words as I type and giving me pointers. Did I mention that she's a control freak?

Alycia's contraband snack of choice was Gummy Bears. I didn't realize that she was going to be providing the pre-movie entertainment with them. The girls and I sat waiting for the curtain to rise (yes, there was a curtain) and chatted about life. Alycia was bored by our conversation, and that's when the fun started.

"Oh, really," Alycia says out of the blue.

Katie and I look over to see what she's doing. This is the same child that played I Spy with herself on a recent road trip home from Illinois.

"He says he can't wait for the movie to start." Alycia announces. Do you know how hard it is to get a 14 year old girl to be seen in public with her mother and siblings on a Saturday night? Mine is sitting between her sister, who is hearing voices and her mother, in a movie theater.

"The gummy bear says he's really excited for the movie." Alycia tells us, very casually. After a

brief second of confusion, Katie and I both burst out laughing. I'm sure concerning some of the other movie goers around us.

"Oh, that's your girlfriend? No, I won't tell them." Alycia continued.

"This one is his girlfriend, and he doesn't want me to eat her." She shares. "Oh, I'm sorry!" She again holds the gummy bear up to her ear, as if the bear is whispering in her ear. "I wasn't suppose to tell you that."

Alycia is a fun, and funny girl. She enjoys making us laugh, all the time. She is sweet and caring, though. She doesn't laugh at other people's expense, like so many people do. She is bright and imaginative. I'm sure that once she stops looking over my shoulder to make sure that I'm writing what she thinks I should write, you'll hear a lot more about her. Like I said, she's complex, funny and a joy to be around.