Is This What My Mother Meant When She Said She Hoped I Had a Child Just Like Me?

It has come to my attention that my son is something of a ladies man, that the girls at school all vie for his attention and jockey for position to get to sit next to him. Ok, it’s one girl. Out of 5 children in my son’s class there is one girl, but still. I witnessed this today as I dropped him off at daycare. They were either starting breakfast early or I was running late, you decide. Anyway I took off his coat and he made his way over to the table and sat down to eat. After the pure and utter shock wore off from this eerily adult thing to do, something happened that I would not have believed had I not been there. The girl, we’ll call her Emily because that’s her name, got up from her chair and walked around the table and sat next to Gabe.

Apparently the look on my face asked the question for me because Gabe’s new teacher replied, “She always has to be next to Gabe”. There was a seat open next to Emily, but Gabe just went to the first seat he came upon and sat. Again, my expression was doing the talking for me; “he doesn’t seem to notice” was the answer. My first thought was: Hussy! My second thought was, well he is pretty cute…looks a lot like his dad after all. Then I was back to: Hussy! And as I walked out to my car it hit me: Gabriel is his father’s son.

All of my life my closest friends have been girls. It wasn’t until 7^th grade when I met Ryan and then Kurt that I had close guy friends and even then my BFF was still a girl. I have no idea if all or none of these girls ever liked me as more than a friend, but that’s the point: I had no idea. It wasn’t until college when someone actually pointed out to me that one of my “friends” really really liked me. Of course it was 3 months after she had decided not to return to that school, in part, because I had not reciprocated those feelings. Yes, she partied a bit and her grades weren’t great because of it, but her parents gave her a choice and she chose to transfer because she felt there was no reason so stay at WMU. To me she was someone to go to the Rec and football games with and she got me into fraternity parties I wasn’t invited to. (Which brings us to Uncle Jeffrey’s tip of the month: Wanna get into any house or fraternity party? Bring a cute girl and five of her friends. No one asks questions.) I thanked my friend for being so timely with her advice...yup, another girl, go figure.

The point is not how handsome and charming I am. As true as it may be, it’s still not the point. The point is I have a perfect opportunity to “life coach” (that’s what the hippies call it) my son when the time comes. Hopefully his old man’s advice will help him avoid losing his best friend after 6 years because she decided to stop talking to him one day and he had no idea why until years later (different girl than the one above…I was so innocent). As much as I love the age that he is, I get a little choked up when I think about him having success in something he loves (even if it’s not sports), learning to ride a bike, learning to drive, graduating from more than nursery 3 to toddler 1, going off to college and getting married. They are milestones I can’t wait to be a part of. For now though, I’m more than happy to sing "If You’re Happy and You Know It" and have him clap and stomp, because that too was a pretty great milestone today.