Summer Lovin'

The other day the high temp was about 90 degrees. Since my son Joshua and I were still home alone, we joined some friends at a pool for a bit. Then we went to see the movie, Kung Fu Panda, which he has been dying to see since it came out. (It was actually pretty funny!) I had promised him we could have ice cream for dinner afterwards. Our family always tries to have ice cream for dinner at least a couple of times a summer. And since his teeth were aching from the new braces, I decided it was the perfect soft meal for us both. We went to Coldstone Creamery. We’d never eaten there but had about $25 worth of gift cards for it so it quickly became our #1 choice.

As we enjoyed our “dinner” sitting on a bench outside the shop, he whispered to me, “There’s Jane*.” (*Name changed to protect the innocent-ish!)

“Who’s Jane?”

“She’s this girl that sent me an e-mail telling me she liked me.”

I glanced over my shoulder in subtle mom fashion (blatantly staring!) at the family sitting a couple of benches over and noted a girl Joshua’s age, and someone I assumed was her older sister in deep discussion. The older sister kept glancing up to study Josh as the girl urgently continued whispering. I could imagine the conversation…

“Oh my gosh! I can’t believe this! It’s the guy I e-mailed at the beginning of the summer to tell him I liked him! I could just DIE!!!”

I turned back to Joshua. “So what did you do?”

“About what?” he said scraping the bottom of his paper dish.

“Jane!”

“Oh, I told her we should just be friends.” He said simply.

He walked away and tossed his paper bowl into the trash can. As he made his way back to me, I noticed the girl and her older sister whispering even more animatedly to each other. Staring. Pointing. Staring. Pointing some more.

“Well, that wasn’t obvious,” he said to me, arching his eyebrow.

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Total flashback to my own youth. It was actually pretty enlightening. I recall doing the exact same thing when out with my own girlfriends in middle school and early high school. We thought we were so smooth; and we thought the “cute guy” was completely oblivious to us. Now I felt like I was in an alternate universe. Instead of relating to the giggling girls, here I was with the “cute guy.” Freaky.

Had we really been that blatant?

On the other hand, we hadn’t prefaced our whispering/giggling/pointing/staring with e-mails (formerly known as “letters”) declaring our interest. Not too long ago, I had a discussion with some mom friends about how girls today are so much more forward than they were. Calling, e-mailing and texting boys to “ask them out.” I mean what’s up with that?

I took in my son’s dark eyes and hair, his dimpled smile. I’m so not ready for this! Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important for girls to have confidence and all, but I’m not so sure I like it where my son is involved. Nope. Not sure about this at all.