Daniel has a "lady love". And the last time I wrote those words, they meant something very different.
I first saw it two months ago, as I was signing him into preschool one morning. She came in with her mom, and I saw her entire disposition change the second she saw Daniel: She lit up with a million watt smile, flipped her ponytail over her shoulder and batted her eyelashes in slow motion.
Within days, his teachers were telling me that they were "inseparable", playing together all day. She cries when he leaves, and watches the window when he's not there. He talks about her all the time, along with his other friends.
But as much as I watch for a change in his behavior specifically towards her, I can't see one. Then I realized: He's a boy. He thinks he has just gained a new playmate who let's him be the captain on the pirate ship while she is the lookout. He thinks he has gained a friend who will defer to whatever game or imaginative venture he wants to pursue at the moment - and he's right. Boys are naive to the heart palpitations of the little girls that surround them. I so clearly remember being one of those girls, and not too far from his age.
He spelled out their names in Scrabble letters, explaining to me, "she is sad when I leave, so I'll write her name". He writes her initials sometimes, with the same explanation of how much she misses him.
He is naive and sweet, and I am not even pretending that he understands what a crush is. But Kindergarten begins this Fall and his world will flip upside down. Everything is changing, and girls will enter the equation sooner than later.
It's just one more sign that my sweet little man is turning into a real man. And I sure wish he'd slow down.
I first saw it two months ago, as I was signing him into preschool one morning. She came in with her mom, and I saw her entire disposition change the second she saw Daniel: She lit up with a million watt smile, flipped her ponytail over her shoulder and batted her eyelashes in slow motion.
Within days, his teachers were telling me that they were "inseparable", playing together all day. She cries when he leaves, and watches the window when he's not there. He talks about her all the time, along with his other friends.
But as much as I watch for a change in his behavior specifically towards her, I can't see one. Then I realized: He's a boy. He thinks he has just gained a new playmate who let's him be the captain on the pirate ship while she is the lookout. He thinks he has gained a friend who will defer to whatever game or imaginative venture he wants to pursue at the moment - and he's right. Boys are naive to the heart palpitations of the little girls that surround them. I so clearly remember being one of those girls, and not too far from his age. He spelled out their names in Scrabble letters, explaining to me, "she is sad when I leave, so I'll write her name". He writes her initials sometimes, with the same explanation of how much she misses him.
He is naive and sweet, and I am not even pretending that he understands what a crush is. But Kindergarten begins this Fall and his world will flip upside down. Everything is changing, and girls will enter the equation sooner than later.
It's just one more sign that my sweet little man is turning into a real man. And I sure wish he'd slow down.
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