First Love
Love comes in many forms. A scruffy white puppy, a new black sports car with leather interior, a man who never forgets to take out the garbage. For my five year-old son Cai, love was once Scooby Doo movies and a 64 pack of Crayola crayons with a sharpener. But after five long years on this earth his love has taken on a new form and her name is Sophia.
My boy is sheltered; I’ll be the first to admit it. Don’t get me wrong, he knows about reincarnation and stranger-danger and the perils of ‘grown-up drinks’ – but I have taught my son very little about romantic love and the opposite sex. I guess I just figured that I would answer questions as they came up. And the truth is the only one who has asked any questions is my three year-old Solomon.
Several weeks ago as I dried off from a shower Solomon looked up from his play-dough very earnestly and said, “Mama, you have a no-penis, right?” I kind of shrugged and agreed. He then asked if he could check and seeing no harm in it I dropped my towel and he leaned forward with a furrowed brow toward my crotch and then looked up at me, held up a finger in determination and decidedly said, “I’m going to check around back.” Standing there with a wet towel held to my chest as my toddler bent at the waist behind me and declared, “Nope, Mama, not here either,” I decided maybe I had withheld too much information.
As parents we want our children to know enough about the world to grow without ruining the blissful innocence they are born with. While Solomon hasn’t quite grasped the concept of boy parts and girl parts, both my boys understand that they are ‘gentleman’ if they open the door for someone and that when people fall in love they have babies together. However there are no kissy-noised taunts or teasing in our house about preschool girlfriends or love. This is not to say I think good natured teasing of this sort is damaging – but coming from a family where my father gave joking ‘hickey-checks’ to me and my sixth grade girlfriends, I guess I am trying to keep my baby a baby a little bit longer.
So romance snuck up on us, Cai and I. Love is a subtle thing and I think it was the authenticity of this first crush that really floored me. Not knowing about these kinds of feelings I have witnessed Cai experience romantic love in its purest form. My son is a clown and usually if he likes someone he puts on his best comedy routine for them. However, Sophia is different.
On a school field trip after most of the children were seated he leaned over to me as we waited in line and in a quiet and disappointed little voice said, “I really wanted to sit next to her Mama,” nodding toward Sophia and her Shirley Temple curls. Well, being the push-to-the-front-of-the-parade kind of mom I am, I made sure a seat was made available next to her and then I watched with fondness and a pang as my slapstick boy sat quietly with his hands tucked between his legs, stealing occasional glances at the little girl next to him. His smile was a mix between Mona-Lisa and Pepe Le Pew when his pupils turn to pulsating hearts and he faints. The feeling this gave me fell somewhere between utter love for my boy and heartbreak of the knowledge that he could love another woman.
So now it’s been three weeks since Cai has mentioned Sophia. And when I volunteer at his school there is no evidence of the shy fascination that I saw last month. Love is fickle and fleeting, even, especially for five year-old boys and I realize now that it is I that will crumble with each heartbreak, with each passing crush. So I think I’ll quit the sappy mom routine and pull myself up by my bootstraps. I’ve been thinking about telling my son about romance and butterflies and give him a definition for all these feelings that have cropped up. Mulling over his innocence yesterday and beginning a ‘birds and the bees’ lecture in my head, Cai snuggled next to me on the couch to watch an old episode of Scooby Doo. He then began to explain to me how two genies on the show were very different.
“See Mama, one is a boy and one is a girl. She’s pretty smart and he’s really dopey. Oh, and he’s ugly and she’s hot. Not like temperature hot Mama, like you know, like girl-hot.”
He looked up at me expectantly with an expression that was too-wise and a little smug. He knew exactly what he was talking about, and suddenly I knew that all I had tried to keep away from him had been there all along. “You do know, right Mama?” he waited.
I stared at his sweet five year-old face, and had a moment that we are all familiar with. It is a sensation particular to mothers, a visceral feeling, one that tells you time is passing too quickly and our babies are growing up. I snuggled a little closer to him and smiled my bravest smile.
“Yes, son. Yes, I do know.”
My boy is sheltered; I’ll be the first to admit it. Don’t get me wrong, he knows about reincarnation and stranger-danger and the perils of ‘grown-up drinks’ – but I have taught my son very little about romantic love and the opposite sex. I guess I just figured that I would answer questions as they came up. And the truth is the only one who has asked any questions is my three year-old Solomon.
Several weeks ago as I dried off from a shower Solomon looked up from his play-dough very earnestly and said, “Mama, you have a no-penis, right?” I kind of shrugged and agreed. He then asked if he could check and seeing no harm in it I dropped my towel and he leaned forward with a furrowed brow toward my crotch and then looked up at me, held up a finger in determination and decidedly said, “I’m going to check around back.” Standing there with a wet towel held to my chest as my toddler bent at the waist behind me and declared, “Nope, Mama, not here either,” I decided maybe I had withheld too much information.
As parents we want our children to know enough about the world to grow without ruining the blissful innocence they are born with. While Solomon hasn’t quite grasped the concept of boy parts and girl parts, both my boys understand that they are ‘gentleman’ if they open the door for someone and that when people fall in love they have babies together. However there are no kissy-noised taunts or teasing in our house about preschool girlfriends or love. This is not to say I think good natured teasing of this sort is damaging – but coming from a family where my father gave joking ‘hickey-checks’ to me and my sixth grade girlfriends, I guess I am trying to keep my baby a baby a little bit longer.
So romance snuck up on us, Cai and I. Love is a subtle thing and I think it was the authenticity of this first crush that really floored me. Not knowing about these kinds of feelings I have witnessed Cai experience romantic love in its purest form. My son is a clown and usually if he likes someone he puts on his best comedy routine for them. However, Sophia is different.
On a school field trip after most of the children were seated he leaned over to me as we waited in line and in a quiet and disappointed little voice said, “I really wanted to sit next to her Mama,” nodding toward Sophia and her Shirley Temple curls. Well, being the push-to-the-front-of-the-parade kind of mom I am, I made sure a seat was made available next to her and then I watched with fondness and a pang as my slapstick boy sat quietly with his hands tucked between his legs, stealing occasional glances at the little girl next to him. His smile was a mix between Mona-Lisa and Pepe Le Pew when his pupils turn to pulsating hearts and he faints. The feeling this gave me fell somewhere between utter love for my boy and heartbreak of the knowledge that he could love another woman.
So now it’s been three weeks since Cai has mentioned Sophia. And when I volunteer at his school there is no evidence of the shy fascination that I saw last month. Love is fickle and fleeting, even, especially for five year-old boys and I realize now that it is I that will crumble with each heartbreak, with each passing crush. So I think I’ll quit the sappy mom routine and pull myself up by my bootstraps. I’ve been thinking about telling my son about romance and butterflies and give him a definition for all these feelings that have cropped up. Mulling over his innocence yesterday and beginning a ‘birds and the bees’ lecture in my head, Cai snuggled next to me on the couch to watch an old episode of Scooby Doo. He then began to explain to me how two genies on the show were very different.
“See Mama, one is a boy and one is a girl. She’s pretty smart and he’s really dopey. Oh, and he’s ugly and she’s hot. Not like temperature hot Mama, like you know, like girl-hot.”
He looked up at me expectantly with an expression that was too-wise and a little smug. He knew exactly what he was talking about, and suddenly I knew that all I had tried to keep away from him had been there all along. “You do know, right Mama?” he waited.
I stared at his sweet five year-old face, and had a moment that we are all familiar with. It is a sensation particular to mothers, a visceral feeling, one that tells you time is passing too quickly and our babies are growing up. I snuggled a little closer to him and smiled my bravest smile.
“Yes, son. Yes, I do know.”
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