The other day I was in the kitchen making dinner and the children were outside playing with their friends. It was a typical afternoon. Then one of the neighbors came in and sat down at the kitchen table. "Mrs. B, I had a really bad day." She's so sweet, she's 11 and I just love her. She looked so sad. "What happened?" She told me the story. She has a crush on a boy in her class and her friend told him that she likes him and asked if he liked her back. "He made a face like he smelled a fart and said 'Ewww, no way' in front of the whole class." She slumped back in the chair and let out a deep sigh. I didn't know what to say. "That wasn't very nice of your friend to tell him that and he was kind of rude, don't you think?" She thought for a minute. "Yeah, he's usually not mean. I wouldn't call him a bully. I would just call him a reject-er." Rejection. That's the worst.
Her feelings were really hurt. Eleven year old boys have not perfected the art of letting girls down easy. They don't say things like, "It's not you, it's me." "I'm only 11, so I don't feel ready to make a commitment." "I really need to focus on my social studies right now." No, they make fart-smelling faces and are inadvertently mean. It's just the way things are. I feel like 10-15 year old girls are so fragile and they are prone to low self esteem anyway because it's just an awkward time. This was not helpful. So I just told her how fabulous I think she is and how smart and beautiful she is and that I am sorry that her feelings were hurt.
Then her little sister walked in with my kids and they all sat at the table. They knew about what had happened and they all talked about boys. They talked about boys while I made dinner. My ears were wide open. I am very much Switzerland when it comes to boy talk, I am kind of neutral. I don't encourage or discourage. I just listen. I hear about how cute Harry Styles is and I know who my girls like in school, and the neighbors girls. My oldest daughter likes this little Irish boy. He looks like a little man. My 7 year old likes this little boy with big eyes that is so sweet. The neighbors daughter likes another like boy who is kind of mischievous. They don't talk about boys a lot, but sometimes they do. My husband does not like it. He needs to get over it. He could give them a speech about how they aren't allowed to think boys (or Harry Styles) are cute anymore but I don't know how well that will go over.
They are kids, they aren't adults. I was a boy crazy little girl. But it was an innocent thing. For instance, I loved JTT. I was 10 years old and had a poster of JTT on my ceiling so that I could gaze into his eyes before I fell asleep. I did fantasize about JTT, but not in an adult kind of way. This was my 10 year old, JTT fantasy: We would go to a live taping of Home Improvement and JTT would see me in the audience and be struck by my beauty and after the show, he would ask my parents if I could live with him in California and they would say yes. Then, I would move into his big house in California. In my fantasy, 12 year old JTT had his own house with no aduts. We would sit on the couch and eat Gushers and watch Nickelodeon together and sometimes he would give me a peck kiss. Then, we would go in his backyard and jump on his trampoline. Because he was rich, and only rich people had trampolines in my 10 year old mind. We never did attend a live taping of Home Improvement, oh how my life could have been different. haha. My fantasies have grown up. Now I dream about being in bed with my husband. Sleeping. Uninterrupted. No snoring, no kids waking up in the middle of the night to crawl in bed and vomit. No one tapping me at dawn to ask what's for breakfast. Just 12 straight hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep. Oh yeah, that's hot.
Between the girls next store and my daughters, I'm sure I'll get to hear about a lot more boy problems. It's good material. I feel ill-equipped to deal with these boy problems but I am good at wiping tears and I do always keep some ice cream in the house. Is there anything that ice cream doesn't help? Boys are kind of overrated - mint chocolate chip is where it's at!
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