I woke up to a beautifully sweet moment early on Saturday morning. I heard the creaking of my bedroom door and the tiptoeing of little feet moving towards me as I lay in bed. “Mom,” Alex whispered. “Can I snuggle with you? I had a bad dream.”
With my eyes still heavy with sleep, I lifted the blankets up and Alex hopped up beside me. He placed his small hand against my cheek, yawned, and in his sweet little sleepy voice said, “I love you, Momma.”
Oh, how I wish I had the power to stop time because if I could, I would have hit the pause button right then and there.
Lately, it seems my little boy is growing up really, really fast. It seems to me that we are starting to enter an entirely brand new world, a world that I’m not entirely sure that I like and a world that I am entirely sure that I’m not ready for.
Long gone are Alex’s Elmo underpants and Sippy cups filled with whole milk, not skim. I no longer have to worry about small parts causing a choking hazard like I did when he was three and under. I don’t have to worry about safety locks on the cupboards for Alex anymore because he’s better at getting them open than I am.
Batman and Superman are quickly dwindling in popularity when compared to Pokémon and something called ‘The Skylanders’. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what a Skylander even is; all I know is we have a pumpkin sitting on our front porch carved into a Skylander face and it isn’t pretty. That’s really all I need to know.
Personally, I kind of like Batman and Superman and will be sad to see them go.
The most frightening thing of all, however, isn’t shopping in the full-on boys section at Kohl’s Department Store.
It isn’t Pokémon and his entourage of weirdly named counterparts. I would know as I’ve been reading to Alex from the Encyclopedia of Pokémon he bought at his school’s book fair this past week. I hate this book primarily because it gives height and weight information for each Pokémon character. I swear if I hear “Mom, how many Pikachu’s does it take to weigh as much as you?” one more time, something bad is going to happen to that encyclopedia.
No, the scariest thing of all about Alex and this new world we are entering into is something you might not expect to be an issue for a six year old boy.
The scariest thing of all is 5 and 6 year old girls.
After attending a few of Alex’s events at school, attending church and Sunday School with Alex, and hearing all the scuttlebutt from my friend Sarah who works at the afterschool program that several of Alex’s female classmates attend, I’m convinced that Alex is likely to be voted the “Biggest Hunk” of his Kindergarten Class.
This surprises no one more than me, and proves to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the miniature version of my Dad. When I was a kid, my Dad never wore his wedding ring because he was a tool grinder and could lose a finger if the machinery caught on the ring.
I have vivid recollections of being at the grocery store with my Dad only to have brazen women see the good looking single father out with his cute kids and attempt to hit on him. My Dad would always laugh, pat whichever one of us kids was nearby on the head, and say, “Sure, I’ll go out with you if I can bring my kids and my wife, their mother, along, too.”
After over 40 years of marriage to my Mom, I’m thinking that was a pretty effective deterrent ; as for Alex, he may need to take some lessons from my Dad on how to get rid of unwanted advances by women (or in his case, 5 and 6 year old girls.)
Two weeks ago at our church’s Fall Festival, Alex made the mistake of sitting next to one such little girl during a hayride. (We’ll call the little girl ‘Anna’, but that is not really her name. I’m the 1993 State of Indiana Spell Bowl championship team co-Captain, and I couldn’t spell this girl’s name if my life depended on it.)
Following the hayride, Alex and Anna exited the wagon and headed over to the bonfire where our Pastor was about to lead everyone in devotions.
Anna sat down on a bale of hay by fire. “Alex,” Anna said, patting the spot on the bale of hay next to her, “come and sit by me!” She smiled at Alex and, Girl Scout’s honor, batted her eyelashes at him.
Of course, this caught my attention. In my mind, I was like, “Oh, how cute!”
Alex ignored her.
Anna moved to another bale of hay. “Alex, come here!” she said a little more forcefully, giving him her best ‘Come hither’ look.
Alex looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “No way,” Alex replied.
Anna stuck out her lower lip into a pout. “Please?”
I made eye contact with Alex and made a motion for him to come and talk to me. “Why don’t you go sit by her? She wants you to sit by her. It’s a nice spot by the fire.”
Alex’s face contorted as he looked at me as if I had sprouted a second head and morphed into an evil Mom. “Mom, do you know what she did to me on that hayride?” Alex asked me, raising his arms up in a highly suggestive manner.
“What could that sweet little girl have done to you on a chaperoned hayride, Alex?” I responded, insinuating he was making a big deal out of nothing.
“She tried to hold my hand!!!” Alex retorted, which, by the tone of his voice, is the functional equivalent of me asking him to eat Brussels sprouts or asking him to face a fully armed firing squad.
I choked back a snort of laughter. “Oh, so you think she wants to hold your hand?” I said.
“I know so.” Alex stated solemnly, emphatically.
“Then you don’t have to sit by her.”
Alex turned on his heels and walked over to one of his friends and sat down.
On the frozen, cold, hard pavement.
We can only assume the pavement regardless of condition is preferable to holding a girl’s hand on a warm bale of hay by a cozy, romantic bon fire with your mom looking on.
Of course, this isn’t where the story ends.
Anna sees Alex’s retreat to the pavement, crosses her arms over her chest and her bottom lip starts to quiver. The tears start flowing, and shortly thereafter I am given an evil look from Anna’s mother.
All I can say is, my son has a mind of his own. He won’t be tied down to any one woman, at least not at six years of age.
The week after the Fall Festival, a similar situation took place at a school skating party as reported to me by Alex’s dad, Jon. Apparently, the lucky lady this time, Jo, also a classmate of Alex’s whose name I can’t spell, chased him around the roller rink at high rates of speed the entire night wanting to hold his hand. Alex didn’t mind the chase, but as for willingly touching a girl, well…you might as well forget about it.
When I questioned Alex about the skating party, and the sudden popularity he’s experiencing with girls, he told me, “I try to keep a low profile, Mom, but what can I say? Girls like me. I don’t like them.”
Let’s just hope that this entire philosophy of Alex’s lasts a long, long time.
Pokemon, Skylanders, and other traditional boy things I think I can deal with.
Boy-crazed Kindergarten girls I cannot.
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