I Think He Likes Her

I've been doing really well, lately.  This year's open house was much different than last years'!  I know that always in the periphery MG lurks, but it can just look on as I live life.  Walking, talking, laughing and stressing. 

 

 

Tonight I walked up and down and all over the kids' school with them, going from class to class following Hot Rod's schedule.  I am proud.  Proud of how far I've come, but as always proud of them.  I cannot believe my little buddy is now in middle school, soon puberty will hit and I'll long for the less complicated days of present without raging hormones, tempers and girls.

 

Currently, he's in a 'girls are scary' phase.  Or at least, they're too scary to talk about with his mom.  As he marched up and down the halls saying hi to this kid and that kid, mixed in those passing greetings were shy waves, smiles and "Hi's" to girls.  Last year we had a conversation much like this:

 

 

Me:  So, are you making friends?

 

Hot Rod:  Yeah.  I'm friends with most of the boys.

 

Me:  What about the girls?

 

Hot Rod:  I don't talk to them.

 

Me:  Why not?

 

Hot Rod:  Because they might think I want to be their boyfriend.  And...I'm only ten, I'm not ready for that!

 

 

Good thinking, my son.  Don't talk to those yucky girls!  But I can't say that to him, I need him to understand this a world of equal opportunity, women's rights and all that jazz.  So I'm left with only one thing to do, if I want to be politically correct (which I'm not so sure I do!).  I push aside my hesitation and say, "You can't not talk to the girls."  (Especially considering there are times he sat sandwiched between them in class.)  "How would you like it if no one talked to you?"  You know that mind bendy parent guilt trip gets through to them...'put yourself in their shoes' we say.  All the while I'm secretly happy he's not conversing with the opposite gender.  Eyes on the prize my man - graduate, go to college, get a good job, then get your first girlfriend!   I smile, triumphantly and then the thought of him becoming a forty year old virgin (what?  Pharmacy school takes years to get through!) plagues my mind.  Yeah, I do dream of actually meeting my grandkids while I'm coherent enough to hold them (which I can totally do now - thank you for showing me that Wonderful Cousin-In-Law....is that a real thing?  If not, I invented it and would like to patent the idea!...You know who you are!).  So waiting until he's forty to get his first girlfriend isn't so appealing now.  *sigh*

 

 

As he walks down the hall, growing more and more confident in his map reading skills, he's cornered by a girl.  A GIRL, I say!  A girl with arms outstretched to hug him.  He relents and she hugs him, and hugs him, and *ahem*...Will she ever let go?  Isn't there a no PDA policy here?  Come on guys, where's the SWAT team to descend upon PDA displaying adolescents and pry them away from each other, like when I was in school (in the stone ages, I guess)?  I begin to worry.  I look at his face and it's a flushed shade of embarrassment, but notice he's hugging her too!  Oh my.  You read that right!  My baby hugged her too.  Arms wrapped around her while hers encircle his neck and dig into him.  I was beginning to wonder when she was going to declare 'I will love him and squeeze him and call him George'.  College, Hot Rod.  After college.  Right? That's not too much to ask....is it?  Anyone?

 

 

I think he likes her.  He fears she likes him.  I fear either of them liking the other and I think I need a nice warm blanket and the corner of a dark room in which I can rock myself gently while I grieve the loss of his baby years.  He's in middle school...and I...I think he likes a girl.