Okay, emails are telling me that yes, Virginia (stop calling me that), you do have to login to comment. So I apologize for making reference to Ritalin, etc. Thanks for reading, if you are, and…it’s coming along. Just imagine donkeys knitting ponchos. In the meantime I will spin plates and you can point and laugh.

Today I get my Franny back and then immediately chuck her at a slumber party, which she is very excited about. We had a weird moment in the spring where she was invited to one for the day she came back from her dad’s and it didn’t work out so well. She came home from school and was supposed to have a snack, pack, and chill out a bit and then go for dinner.

Instead Franny utterly dragged her feet and moped, clinging to me on the couch and talking about how her week had gone. The minutes ticked by.

“Are you going to pack?” I said.

“Mmm, yes, soon, I guess.”

Finally I asked her if she wanted to go.

“I don’t know,” she said, frowning. “What are you making for dinner?” By accident I was making one of her favorite things, peanut-crusted chicken.

“Oooh, darn” she said, and dragged herself upstairs but was only pretending to pack. “I want to see Strudel and P. tonight.”

“Tomorrow,” I said. “Have fun tonight with those girls and family time tomorrow.”

We got out the door in time, Franny looking jolly like someone who is walking off to be executed. Her shoulders slumped.

“Are you having trouble making a decision?” I said.

“Yes,” she sighed.

“Well,” I said, “sometimes when I am having trouble deciding, I listen to my gut. You know, how I feel inside? I say, do I feel excited about going to this party, or do I want to stay home?”

Normally if she was a little grumbly or lazy I would tell her to sack up and give her a little speech about not being flaky and trying to see our promises through, but she was looking weird.

We approached the door and could see into the front window, which was half a storey above street level. The rest of the girls were already there and were having some sort of screamy eight-year-old girl ritual in the living room involving scarves and jumping around a lot. We walked up the steps unnoticed. Franny clutched her sleeping bag and her finger hovered over the doorbell. She turned to me.

“My gut is telling me to stay home,” she said, and put her finger away.

We walked home and she seemed much happier immediately. I called one of the parents and apologetically told them that Franny was not going to be there. People are pretty understanding of the fact that split custody is really hard on her and things like this happen sometimes. Before she went to bed that night, I asked her if she had made the right decision.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m just glad those girls didn’t see me.”

So I hope we don’t have a repeat of that today, really. I want her to go and do fun things with her friends. Tonight I will tell her I am making liver and onions, followed by a rousing evening of “sit in a cardboard box and stare at the wall.”