Conversations with Boys and Just so you know, I LOVE MY KID

I had my much needed "beginning of the school year" get together with my therapy group Bible Study group yesterday.  We've been together for over ten years and we have arrived at the season of life which we knew would be as mentally exhausting as the toddler years had been physically exhausting.  We talked about Middle School and how our kids were faring in the big, bad world of cliques and peer pressure and all those influences we knew would come some day.  We fretted about the boy/girl drama that we haven't yet had the pleasure of experiencing with our kids and that we're hoping to avoid, even though we all know each of us didn't avoid it as teenagers, so we're bracing ourselves..

I talked about how I had walked into the high school football game last Friday night and started to cringe right away as I saw groups of young boys and girls giggling here and whispering there.  It was automatic:  I felt the urge to sprint to the bathroom and check to be sure my Farrah wings were in place and that my turquoise eyeliner wasn't running.  My eyes scanned the crowd for my friends...someone?  anyone? 

We all have this notion of Middle School as big and bad and scary and bully-ish and clearly it can be.  But after each of us talked about our own Middle Schoolers and how their first weeks had gone, we realized that we, mommies, were more anxious than our children were.  We want so badly to be sure they feel like they fit in and that they don't get hurt by friends or feel rejected.  Sometimes if we just stop the hand-wringing and listen to and watch our kiddos, we might find that they are doing just fine and dandy and we might just want to zip it.

Exhibit A:  A mere handful of hours after my Mommy Meeting, Joe and I were out to dinner and the conversation turned to how some girls and boys were "going out" in Middle School.  Basically, I think that means texting each other and never "going" anywhere, but still.   I got my "Let's have a bonding moment" face on and started thinking I needed to launch into my speech about his being too young for relationships and too busy with Geometry and Spanish to be worrying about what a girl thinks of him all day at school.  Then of course, there's the whole problem which I like to call "PLEASE, DON'T MAKE ME HURT SOME LITTLE 8th GRADE GIRL WHO MESSES WITH YOUR SWEET HEART, BECAUSE IT WILL BE EMBARRASSING AND I MIGHT GET ARRESTED."   Instead, though, I closed my mouth and listened and he said this: (Joe speaks in bold letters apparently)

"Well, So and so thinks I should get a girlfriend this year. But the thing is, what's the point?  Last year I had that girlfriend and she was all, 'I hope we never break up...we're so great together.'  Then 3 days later she broke up with me because she said,  'You're, like, soooo childish.'  So I said, 'Sorry, I've got two younger brothers and you know, that's just the way I roll.'  And really, she was on crutches the whole two weeks we were going out, so it's not like we were holding hands and running through the daisies or anything."

Laughed so hard I almost spit out my Diet Coke and then took a deep breath.  At least for today, this one seems to be handling things just fine all by himself.