Boyfriends

                            
My daughter had a friend sleep over last night. Are you starting to see a pattern? We always have extra kids. I was buried under a pile of work and let them play while I was in the kitchen on the computer. I walked in and they were talking about boys. I was ease dropping. My daughter said, "Yeah, me and A have boyfriends." "Who?" They told me who. "What does that mean? Do you hold hands at camp?" They looked at me like I had 3 heads. "No. It just means we like each other and we hang out and each lunch together." Whatever. I would expect this out of my 6 year old. That child is boy crazy but not my oldest. She doesn't have Bieber fever, she never mentions boys, doesn't hang out with boys. I was taken off guard. She is one of the youngest in her grade. A lot of her friends will be turning 10 within the next 4-5 months, so it makes sense I guess. I was boy crazy at that age. Although, I never had a boyfriend. But only because no boys liked me. I did have a boyfriend in my head though - Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

I loved him. JTT was MY man. I was 9-10 and had posters of him plastered on my wall. I slept on the top bunk and had a poster of him taped to the ceiling. It was JTT laying in a pile of stuffed animals. Haha. We would gaze into each others eyes every night.
                                                    
I had this fantasy about him. A fourth grader fantasy - so G-rated. In this fantasy, my parents took us to California to watch a live taping of Home Improvement and he would see me in the audience and be astounded by my beauty and invite me to live in his house. In my fantasy, 11 year old Jonathan Taylor Thomas lived alone in his own house and my parents agreed to let me live there too. We would do things like eat Fruit Roll Ups together and watch TV and we would jump on his trampoline in the backyard together; because I thought that only rich people had trampolines. Me and JTT were going to be together one day. I was sure of it.

BUT - I don't want MY daughters to like boys ever. I don't care if they only eat lunch together. There are so many other things to do then worry about boys and if they like you or not. It changes so quickly. I am young and I remember those days so vividly, it seems nearly impossible that I have a child who is going into the 4th grade and pairing up at summer camp. So we talked about it and I was not encouraging but not discouraging either. I was very matter of fact about it, but inside, for some reason, I could feel the knife turning.

That night, my husband and I laid together in bed and I let it out. "You know C has a boyfriend?" He laughed. "It's D. They "like" each other and her friend has a "boyfriend" too." He shrugged it off and didn't seem bothered. I asked, "What age do boys start having raging hormones?" I should know this because I have been extremely puberty-obsessed the past 6 months. "I don't know, 9, 10, 12?" What? Kill me now. I was very upset. "She's in 4th grade now, but in 5th grade kids hold hands, and in 6th and 7th grade they are tongue kissing and we all know that tongue kissing is a gateway drug for other things. You tongue kiss a boy and the next thing you know you have 2 kids and a never- ending pile of laundry. I don't like boys." My husband laughed, "Ok, femi-nazi. You could have just been a poet instead and never shaved your legs and hung out at Lilith Fair." I like poetry AND not shaving my legs AND Lilith Fair, so I was not insulted. It's not that I don't like boys. It's just that I don't like the future boys who are going to want to kiss my daughters. I especially don't like boys that my daughter will want to kiss someday. They hit a certain age and then all they care about it playing the piano with you and that's all they ever want to do for the rest of their life. She only really has 2 or 3 good years left and then the rest of her childhood will be spent fending off boys that want to play the piano. That makes me feel so sad inside. I only have 9 years left with her - in 9 years she will be an adult and I don't want to share her with boys. I want her to just want to hang out with me.

I was distracted by my melancholy, however, when my 6 year old started to randomly vomit this afternoon. It's hard to be upset out growing-up kids when you are performing regurgitation sanitation duties.