On Youth and Love

My son got in an argument with his best friend from school. He got caught holding hands with the other boy's girlfriend, and things got a little heated. Some emotional altercations ensued and tears were spilled. Apparently, my son is absolutely insistent that he is going to marry this girl and there doesn't seem to be anything that we can do about it!

Okay, now take a deep breath, and re-read that paragraph with the understanding that my son, my youngest son, is only 4. His friend and the little girl are the same age. My son's friend calls the little girl his "mistletoe", a nickname which nobody can explain (not even the little boy's mother), and apparently he (the other little boy) doesn't even know what it means that my son said he was going to marry this little girl, but he knows it's bad and that it somehow excludes him, so things got bad. The little boy cried while my son was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, happy to be the winner in this little love-triangle.

So tonight I had a talk with him and explained to him that he can't decide who he is going to marry right now. He wasn't too happy about that, and didn't really like my explanation when I told him that he needs to wait until he's a grown up. I told him that if he got married to her now, he might grow up and decide he doesn't really like her as they get older, and then what would he do? He didn't like those thoughts one bit, but I soon tickled the little rascal and he ran away happy.

My eight-year-old daughter, ever the emotional sophisticate, was sitting across the room listening to this conversation with a silly grin on her face. She has a not-so-secret crush on a boy from church, who I think is kind of a little punk. She has a tendency to like the "bad boys", much to my great dismay, as evidenced by this crush and also her unceasing fascination with a bully in her older brother's grade at school. This trend makes me very nervous for her teenage years.

My oldest son, as far as I can tell, doesn't care one whit what other people think about him (even us). Well, okay, there is one exception: he doesn't want other kids to think he's a wimp. The other day he twisted his ankle pretty badly at school and ended up coming home early. That very evening he went to a pack meeting with his cub scout group and wore nothing but a smile as he walked and sprinted around the room like there was nothing wrong. At home, however, he was so very injured (the big exaggerator) to the point where he needed to elevate his foot and would wince and whimper every time he stepped on the bad foot. At school the next day, however, he apparently showed no sign of trouble because he was too embarrassed to let the kids see him limp.

One could say that this is bad because he's concerned what others think of him, but you know, it's actually a step in the right direction for him because he is very unaware of how he is perceived socially. He picks his nose at the drop of a hat (any hat), can't be still or silent (ever), has more nervous ticks than you can shake a stick at, and makes weird noises incessantly. As a ten-year-old, I keep hoping he'll grow out of some of this stuff, and he is improving, but at this rate, he'll probably move out first.

Oh, and I'm sure he'll notice that girls are interesting one of these days, but I have absolutely no idea how that's going to go.