Blogs

By Hillary Ibarra

“Mama, do you have recommendations for places to go on a date?” my 10-year-old son asked me recently.

This boy has been looking forward to dating since he started school, when he was a kindergartner dreaming of lunching with his sweetheart at McDonald’s. That sweetheart, “Adeline,” was an eighth grader on his big brother’s soccer team who had captured his heart by hugging him and telling him he was cute. Our little guy wasn’t daunted by the age gap. Because she was so petite, there was little height difference. With absolute confidence he told people that Adeline was his girlfriend.

He was discouraged when she started going out with a boy her own age but cheered up quickly.

“I’ll win her back!” he declared.

He asked his father if he could invite her and her beau to his sixth birthday party. What public humiliations he had planned for his rival — water balloon attack, silly string sabotage or cake in the face — we never found out; his dad said no. Nevertheless, our Romeo declared one day to a group of parents that he had a “true love.” One adult, shocked to hear a kindergartner assert such a thing, asked who it was.

“Adeline,” our chivalrous little man proclaimed.

Bah! Perhaps I’m just the mother who thinks no eighth grader is good enough for her son, but I was sick of hearing about Adeline. His infatuation with girls had started early and strong, but couldn’t he at least fall for a girl around his own age? A second grader even?

Since Adeline, he has indeed had crushes closer to his age. Helping at the Valentine’s Day arts and crafts table in the school lunchroom when he was in first grade, I watched him create a lovely Valentine’s card.

“Who is that for?” I asked.

“Riley.”

Riley regularly sat in time-out at lunchtime for bad behavior, but I was not surprised by my son’s attraction to a femme fatale.

I was surprised, however, when his best friend, with a sly grin at Daniel, spoke up and said, “I’m making one for Riley, too.”

Every love story requires a rival, preferably a best friend or a brother!

My little Romeo developed his Valentine’s Day radar early as an opportunity to win a girl’s heart. He purchased Valentine’s gifts with his own money starting in first grade. He is not above romantic gestures on random days, either. In fourth grade he gave his crush a 10-dollar bill to cheer her up because she was sad on the bus ride home.

I was dumbfounded.

“Son, a dollar — maybe two. But 10 whole dollars just to make someone smile?!”

Romeo considered it well spent.

That same unsmiling girl told him she wanted a giant teddy bear for Valentine’s Day. I put my foot down and gave him a cash limit. She received a modest box of candy and a miniature teddy bear instead.

My youngest boy can find romance anywhere — even in a cemetery. While visiting Tombstone, Arizona, two years ago, he begged me to let him buy a pair of earrings for a girl at a gift shop attached to Boothill Cemetery where shot, stabbed or hung outlaws took their eternal peace a few yards away from us. I was dumbfounded by his weird request. I said no, because a third grader is too young to buy jewelry for anyone, anywhere, and what would he say when he gave the earrings to her? "Hey, girl! I saw this jewelry in a graveyard gift shop and thought of you...?"

As a mother, I have wondered, Why the heck did my son start drawing pictures of Cupid’s arrow in his heart at five? Perhaps he scoured Jane Austen books by flashlight when I thought he was sleeping or perused my favorite romance, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Maybe he has been reading Shakespeare’s sonnets behind my back since preschool, barely tolerating the adventure tales I’ve chosen for bedtime stories. No doubt his future “true love” will appreciate his romantic soul and his willingness — of which I can testify — to binge watch romantic comedies, including Hallmark Christmas movies, with her.

In fact, I will wager that if our little Romeo decides to take dance lessons in his teenage years, he will qualify as a girl’s perfect date…so long as he doesn’t take her to McDonald’s.

— Hillary Ibarra.

Hillary Ibarra is the author of The Christmas List, an inspirational holiday novella based on real events. Her humor writing has appeared in New Mexico Woman and on various online sites, her favorite being Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. She is a contributor at CatholicMom.com and For Every Mom. When not baking, hugging trees or playing endless board games with her children, she writes about family life and adventure in the sunny Southwest at hillaryibarra.com.