Handsaker Family Blog: Smitten

I'd been hearing about it for several weeks before I witnessed it for myself. The parent educator and teacher had told parents in a meeting several months ago that girls and boys would likely be chasing each other by the end of the year. I kind of wrote the whole thing off thinking, geez, they're only five!
I work in Georgia's class once a week and finally noticed that Georgia seemed to pay particular attention to one little boy, Logan. I'd been hearing more and more about Logan at home and after comparing notes with his mom, Georgia's name was coming up often at his house too.
I literally had to hold back from a full on gasp as I watched my daughter chase, tease, hug and quite frankly flirt with Logan.
At one point Logan was chasing Georgia and her friend Hazel, Hazel stopped and said, "Logan, stop chasing us!" The look on Georgia's face was priceless, she looked at Hazel, totally confused, as if saying, What?? No, I want him to chase us!!
I've heard from other parents that Georgia's gets all giddy when Logan arrives at school, they call each other silly names and seem to be fairly smitten with each other. The page Logan wrote in Georgia's big heart book reads, I like when Georgia chases me. And in the words of Georgia's teacher, "oh, she's got it bad for him!"
I stared to ask about Logan and noticed the more I asked the less she wanted to talk. I remembered what a friend had told me several years ago. She said that her barely teenage son came home and told her he'd had his first kiss. I immediately asked, "how did you do that? How do you create a relationship with your kids so they come home and tell you about that stuff?" She said they've never teased or poked fun at him about girls. They always tried to be pretty nonchalant about the whole thing to make him comfortable about something that can be so awkward.
I have been trying to adopt this philosophy in hopes of training myself not to giggle like a school girl while watching my daughter have her first crush.
Logan rode in our car on a field trip a couple of weeks ago, I silently drove while listening to them chat, Logan asked if Georgia wanted to have a staring contest, it was all very adorable.
Last week Logan came over for our first ever boy playdate, it was a scene of total cuteness as I watched them show off for each other. When his mom dropped him off she introduced herself to Brian as Georgia's future mother in law. For now, it's pretty sweet to watch this friendship unfold, you can tell they know there is something different than their other friends at school but in the end they're just enjoying being smitten with each other.
The whole things is very eye opening for me, I had no idea social development of 4-5 year olds involved anything like this!