Ticklish

They were giggling in the back seat, and when I looked in the rear view mirror to check what was going on, I got a surprise.

The grandchildren were side by side in their car seats and one was tickling the other. Both were having a great time with this, but the surprise for me was that the two year old boy was tickling his older four year old sister.

I've been kn known to extrapolate whole universes from just a few data points, so you need to take some of what I say with the proverbial grain of salt. This isn't a scientific observation at all, just me babysitting my grandchildren. When I told the other grandmother (the one who is not my wife) about it, she had seen it too, but said that sometimes the older girl tickles the younger boy.

Usually the girl, by virtue of her age, size and greater understanding dominates the boy. Not in a bad way, just older sister bossiness (with allowances for the selfishness of being four years old, of course.) But there she was, giggling as he wiggled his fingers on her arm.

It's dangerous to claim this is male female genetics, of course, but it is equally foolish to ignore the manifest differences between the sexes, especially when they manifest at two years old.