gi-irl tomorrow." "Um, what girl?" I asked my son later, trying to sound casual and failing badly. "Oh, you don't know her," he said nonchalantly. "She's from the sport's class we go to on Tuesday afternoons."
I'll admit it. In a very uncool move, today I decided to stay for the entire class, when normally I'd leave to go shopping or run errands or have a tea with mom friends. J, who normally always asks me if I'm planning to stick around and looks disappointed when I say I'm probably not going to, appeared slightly alarmed when he saw me sit down on the bench. "You're staying?" He asked. "Why?" "Because I love you," I said. "Because I want to show my support of your ...sporting endeavours." "For the whole class? You're staying?" And he gave me a look. A look that said, "I know what you're doing. Don't pretend it's because you're supportive."
Part of it was kind of funny: an almost six year old boy acting all silly in an attempt to impress a girl, even though he really couldn't quite figure out why he was doing it. But it was also a little sad. Because I knew at that moment that he was going to grow up no matter what I tried to do about it, and that he was going to become slightly less mine in increments that would sometimes seem small and sometimes seem big--and today felt gigantic. Being a mom is hard. Somehow, the idea of him having his first crush broke my heart today, just a little bit, and completely unexpectedly.
I'll give him this, though: the girl is cute. And she had a little red sequined heart clip in her hair. Well played, sister.
