Boys

The babysitter who picks up Dutch and some other kids after school several days a week reported to me the other day that Dutch had been trying to kiss one of her playmates, Ernie. She said she hadn't known what she should do, so she just distracted the kids with another game. I asked Dutch about it later, and Dutch told me she had NOT been trying to kiss him, she had been "pretending to bite his nose off." This did not really clarify the situation for me, but whatever. Ernie hit her with a stick later on in the afternoon, so apparently there's a balance of power.

Dutch told me recently that she thought she might marry Mark, this kid in her class. I asked her why* and she said, "Well, we're almost always on the same team," which I think, all things considered, is a pretty damn good reason to want to marry somebody. And Mark, apparently, told his mom that Dutch was the only girl in his class like the character Hermione, in the Harry Potter books, which his mom indicated was high praise indeed.

Today I went by the school to drop off Dutch's lunch. I put it in the cafeteria and went to the classroom to put a scarf in her backpack, too (we left in a big hurry this morning), and when I returned to the cafeteria to say hi to Dutch, I found her class sitting in two groups, separated by a wide expanse of empty table. Dutch was sitting next to Mark, in the group made up of about eight boys, Dutch, and one other girl. As far as I can glean from her reports about school, she's been playing more and more with the boys. It reminds me of when she started daycare at age 2.5, and ended up playing in the rock pit with the boys all the time.

Anyway. Boys. Life. Growing up. I don't know what it all means.

*I KNOW why - he's a bright, sweet kid who's also goofy, energetic, silly and funny in a non-threatening, not-out-of-control way. I would have wanted to marry him when I was six, too.