Note From The Author—Okay, so I hope this comes out as cute as I'm hoping. I owe thanks to a sibling of a friend of a sibling because I actually know someone who tried to do exactly what Sophie tries in this chapter. Also, the sex and name of Danny and Lindsay's little one is revealed in this chapter. Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer—I don't own any of the characters of CSI: NY, except for the little one's I invented, of course.
Sophia Flack couldn't seem to stop feeling upset. When her baby brother Patrick had been in her mama's tummy it had been all well and good, but then he had come out. From that day on it had been nothing but crying and eating and icky smells. Sophia loved her baby brother, but he was loud and stinky and she hated that everyone had been paying more attention to him than her in the three months since he had been born.
Which was why, when her Daddy turned to the stove to finish her lunch one day, she did her best to work on getting rid of Patrick. As she sat in her chair a the little table her Daddy had set up for her and her baby brother sat in his carrier she went to work. Then the door opened, and her mother walked in. Her little heart began to race and she very quietly stood and fled to her room.
Sophie hid under her covers, knowing that her mom and dad were about to figure out exactly what she'd been up to. Never in her four years of life had she ever been so terrified to face her parents and she knew they would be calling her in soon.
Sure enough her mother's voice rang out. "Sophia Elyse Flack, come out here right now."
When she came out Stella was standing with her hands on her hips and Flack stood next to her, holding the baby. "Sophia, do you want to explain this?" Stella asked. Then she held out the two postage stamps that her husband had carefully peeled from their son's forehead.
She shook her head and Flack sighed. "Sophia, that wasn't really a question. Tell us what's going on."
"Maria said that's what her parents do when they want to send something away."
Stella kneeled down to bring herself to her daughter's level. "Don't blame this on Maria or Aunt Lindsay and Uncle Danny, Sophie."
"I'm not mama, I swear! I just…."
"You just what honey?" Flack asked.
Sophie's big blue eyes swam with tears. "I just wanted Patrick to go away for a while."
"Why on earth would you want that?" Stella asked.
"Nobody pays attention to me anymore. Everybody loves Patrick more than me."
For a moment Stella and Flack were both rendered completely speechless. Then she leaned forward to hug her little girl. "Sweetie that's not true. We don't love you any less because you have a baby brother now. We love you just as much as we did before Patrick came and we always will. We just love him too."
"But everyone always wants to see him first. They always want to talk about him and hold him and play with him instead of me," she said sadly.
Don passed the baby to Stella as she stood up, then he bent to swing Sophie up into his arms. "People just get excited because Patrick's so new. Everyone still loves you sweetheart, and they still want to play with you and hold you. They just worry that you don't want to be picked up and carried and stuff like that because you're getting to be a big girl. So what you have to do is tell us all how you feel before you get so mad that you try and do something like mail off your baby brother."
"You're daddy's right sweetie. We can't help you if you don't tell us what you're feeling."
She nodded. "Okay, I'll try. I'm sorry I tried to mail Patrick away."
"We know you are. Lucky for you it doesn't work that way, because I'm sure you would have missed your little brother if you had actually sent him away," Flack told her with a smile.
Sophia nodded again. Then an adorably confused smile came over her face. "You can't mail people?"
