My daughter, the flirt

After this past weekend, there's no denying it, no trying to explain it away. The simple fact is that my 3-year-old daughter Allie is already a huge flirt.

Her friendly ways have always shone through. Of the four kids, she's the most gregarious. She's the one who walks up to people in the grocery store or at a restaurant and will say "Hello" and strike up a conversation, usually involving whatever stuffed animal she is carrying around that day.

When it comes to preschool or activities like swimming lessons, she's the one who quickly kisses me good-bye and runs up to give her teacher a hug.

This is all quite new to me; two of her brothers are on the shy, keep-to-themselves side (like me, I guess) while her third brother Nick is more middle-of-the-road when it comes to sociability.

So, that's all been good and well and fun to watch. But then Saturday we got a glimpse of another side of Allie's friendliness.

We were all at Blake's indoor soccer game, watching from the bleachers. Midway through, Allie decides to sashay down the bench, some 20 feet or so away, to a trio of boys -- probably 9 or 10 years old. She starts yukking it up, smiling, giggling, asking them questions ("Are you watching soccer?" "Do you like my bear?") and then running back to Mom and Dad. This keeps repeating itself.

Finally, in an effort to give these poor boys some relief, we (more specifically, Brett) tell Allie to come back and sit with us. "No, Daddy," she says, smiling coyly. "I liiiiike these boys."

This sent two of the boys packing while the third remained. Brett, still reeling from Allie's candid confession, tried to whisk her away again, this time physically, and said to the boy, "Sorry if she's bugging you."

"No, she's funny," he replied.

Great. Cute, flirty, AND funny.