Girlfriend

The Big Boy Girlfriend Update:  
I knew it was going to happen someday, I just wasn’t prepared for it to be so soon, when my son was so young.  He has a girlfriend.   I suppose I’d better back up and explain how it all began…

Three hours ago we were happily enjoying time in my in-law’s backyard pool.   My brother- and sister-in-law were here with their high school aged niece and nephew.   Partway through the afternoon we were joined by my nephew’s girlfriend, Madison.   She introduced herself and then got right into the pool to balance out our water volleyball game.   We had a good time swimming, sliding down the inflatable slide and eating snow cones from my mother-in-law’s new machine.   Everything was going well.

It was at that point that I went inside to clean up and help my daughter.    A short while later I came back to find everyone inside and my son, bursting to tell me something.   Madison, he told me, was his girlfriend.   He was basically claiming her by standing and sitting on her.   There was a lot of laughing from the teenagers and for some inexplicable reason my eighteen-year-old nephew wasn’t threatened at all by this new potential suitor.

My son spent the rest of the afternoon over with the teenagers, being very friendly, sometimes too friendly.   He was sitting by Madison at one point and poked her breast asking, “why is that there?”     I don’t think he got an answer because we all were laughing so much at the question.  Madison was very gracious and resigned herself to having two boyfriends for the day.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter is clearly visually impaired, but sometimes it’s hard to tell what she can and can’t see.   Just now I put a bandage on her finger and she couldn’t see the high-contrast smiley face on the bandage.   But yesterday at the airport she was able to see something I didn’t expect.   I was doing the parental, “hurry up, walk quickly, follow me, we have to go” type of comments as my daughter was trailing behind me by about ten feet.    She said, “I’m coming, don’t look at me!” likely in response to my constant looking back to see if she was still moving along.    Then it got interesting because every time I’d turn my body around as I walked to check on her she’d crankily yell out, “don’t look!”   She saw me turn around every time.   So I tried by just turning my head and she could tell that as well.    So she’s seeing something.