He Might Be Ready...I'm Not...

My son Ian, who is eight years old, has his first crush.

Altogether now...awwwww...

For the last week and a half, Ian has been "meeting" his friend Skylar on Club Penguin (if you don't know what Club Penguin is, count your blessings, or check out my post about it, filed under Kids-titled "Some Days You Just Won't Win...). Skylar is in Ian's class at school, and having met the girl, I can see why my boy is smitten. Skylar is a very pretty, if a bit taller than Ian, young lady.

I'm not quite sure how Ian and Skylar came to know that they both like to frequent the Club Penguin website, since Ian likes to keep to himself most of the time. However it came about, my son has been on the phone talking to a girl, while meeting her in a frozen penguin town in cyberspace.

This morning I finally asked the question I had been avoiding for the last few days.

"Ian," I queried as he was putting his boots on to head out the door to school. "Do you like Skylar?"

The goofy grin and ducking his head down into his chest kind of gave him away, but he answered, "I don't know..."

"Ian, it's ok to like girls you know," I told my blushing 8 year old. "You're at the age when it starts."

"Oh," he said. "I didn't know that."

"Well, maybe you can talk to Daddy about it too," I said. "He used to be a little boy like you."

"Oh, yeah," Brian said, coming into the conversation. "I had my first crush on a girl when I was in grade 3 too."

The two of them went out the door to the bus, and so I didn't hear the rest of the conversation, but as I watched them through the window, my heart did little flip flops...first, because I thought, my baby has a crush on a girl. And then I thought, my baby has his first crush on a girl...

The little hussy better treat him right, that's all I'm saying...