3 years ago, when my son Josh was 3 years old, he had a crush on his preschool teacher. He would get into my car in the pickup line at his school, wave goodbye to her, and then sigh and say "I wuv that lady." My jealousy during that time was intense, seeing as I was his #1 love for the past 3 years. But it was nonetheless adorable and harmless. Until the following year, when Josh was placed in a new class, with a new Teacher and he made a new friend on the first day of school- his previous Teacher's son. They became fast friend's and asked repeatedly for play dates. I connected with his old Teacher to set up a play date for our boys, and the first time she came to drop off her son I found Josh standing in front of the mirror for much longer than he normally did (which was zero minutes).
"Whatcha doin?" I asked, as he smiled, winked at himself and checked out his outfit.
"Nothing," he said, blushing. "Just making sure I wook handsome for Mrs. B. Do you have any flowers I can give her?"
The following year, I made a new friend at the gym. The first time Josh met her, he blew her a kiss as she left our house and he said to me, "I fink I'll marry her." Whenever he came to the gym with me he had to find or make jewelry to give her before we could leave the house. He wouldn't listen when I told her she was too old for him, and a few months ago, when she asked me to be in her Wedding party, he cried and said, "I didn't fink she'd really marry someone else."
This year he's in Kindergarten, and as you can guess, he loves his Teacher. As soon as he found out she likes donuts, he came home and enlisted his art-loving sister to draw him a "pink donut with chocolate sprinkles on top", which he then cut out, "sprinkled with imaginary kisses", brought to school with him, and presented to her as a token of his affection. You can imagine how our Parent Teacher conference went the following day. Loads of laughter.
One night during dinner last week he declared, "There's a girl in my class I really like. I asked her to play cards with me, laughed at all her jokes even though they weren't funny, and I think I'm in love with her. Please call her Mom and set up a play date." Which of course, I did. It's been one week since he asked me to set up a play date, and he has had his outfit laid out on his floor for 7 days, along with an old ring he found in my drawer, waiting for the moment when he can show up at the playground and look as handsome as he can in his Rugby jersey, hoping she'll notice, which, I can only assume, she will not.
And then there's my daughter. I knew that as a 2nd grader, if she is anything like I was at that age, she would have already been in love 12 times. I used to leave love notes/drawings in my crush's locker in 1st grade, make my Mom drive by one boy's house just in case he was outside and I could sneak a peak at his beautiful face, and I have a distinct memory of chasing one boy around the playground trying to get him to kiss me. But, lucky for us, it looks like I only passed down my intense crush genes to my son, as my daughter's response to all of Josh's antics is "Ew, why would you ever want to kiss anyone but Mommy and Daddy?" PHEW!
