She's Just a Girl...

A girl called First Born Prince for the first time Friday evening.  It was 7:30 and her phone etiquette wasn’t that great. I figured she was shy.  I felt something akin to sympathy for her and handed the phone over to my son.

She called again the next morning at 8:15.

Good Lord.  It was barely twelve hours. 

I am totally uncomfortable with this.  When a few of his girl classmates started e-mailing him a few weeks ago, we had a heart to heart.  I explained to him that we didn't think 5th graders were ready to date or “go out.”  What happened to model horses and Barbie?  He was welcome to eat lunch with his new friends at school and that maybe sometime a few of us moms could take a group of them to the movies, but that was about it.

We went out for our usual winter Saturday—basketball game, lunch, Huck wrangling.  He scrolled through our Missed Calls on the handset when we got home.

“She called a lot.” 

As if on cue, the phone rang, Caller ID showed it was her.  He looked at me and I detected a plea for help in his eyes.

She’s hunting him down like a dog.

I fibbed and said he wasn’t home.

The same fifth grade girl (she is NOT, do you hear me, his girlfriend) rang back again an hour later and I started to feel sorry for her.  Where was her mother?  Who was coaching her to make these incessant phone calls?  I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I grabbed the phone and in a very sacchariny voice explained that he was busy with his family for the rest of the evening and Sunday too.   He would see her at school on Monday.  I felt like church lady.

She quietly just hung up the phone, not even whispering a good-bye.  It seemed like defeat, not defiance.  I got a pit in my stomach.  She is only ten years old!  She can’t possibly be after anything unnatural or indecent.  Maybe she’s just bored, or I don’t even want to type this….lonely?

I turned to the Professor.  “Do you think we should invite her to the movies with us today?”

“Are you crazy?  You just told me that he is too young for this and we shouldn’t encourage it.”

I snapped back to thinking about my son.  I went through all the permutations in my mind.  I turned the ringer off on the phone and told myself I was doing the right thing.