Incoming Texts

I can remember when Adrian would cry whenever one of us left him at daycare.

When I would leave him to go on vacation he would call me, barely able to use the phone, to say he missed me and he couldn't sleep.

I remember the joy he would get at 2 years old when Mat would come home from work and he'd take off, with his one arm wagging beside him, to jump on him.

Now, he's almost 10. He's the sweetest boy around, but he's leaping and bounding toward teenage years.

He has a crush on a girl a school, one of his friend's older sisters. She's absolutely gorgeous and has mastered the art of being politely dismissive. Adrian is officially a stage 4 clinger.

Their texts go something like this:



Hi. You're very pretty.

Thank you!

will you be my girlfriend

I am too young to date! But you're very nice!

but hey you are my girlfriend because you text me even though im not your mom or dad

No, I'm not silly. We're just good friends!

friends that are boyfriend and girlfriend you're pretty

......


Poor guy. I think he has these romantic 10 year old visions in his head of dancing in the kitchen on a whim to Nat King Cole, while playfully flicking flour at each other.

She hasn't texted him back in a few days and he's rather distraught. He's trying to give her the "cold shoulder" as he calls it. (I guess he heard that phrase at DARE???) Tonight he was helping me clean the dishes when his phone buzzed from the other side of the room. He made eye contact with me and looked as though he was in absolute disbelief that he could possibly have an incoming text.

He sprints across the room

"that's my phone, that's my phone, that's my phone"

"please be her please be her please be her please be her"

He picks it up, his hands shaking, and looks at me, his eyes full of lost hope and said, dripping with too much sarcasm...

"oh.great. It's Daddy. THANKS FOR THE TEXT.

"I'm not even going to write him back"

He throws his phone into the chair and storms off to his room to do something super boyfriendish, like play with Pokemon cards or make rubber band bracelets.





He eventually moved on from his heartache and helped me put Ellis to bed.


This is one little girl that will never break his heart. Even though she frequently kicks him in the head.

Thank God he is reading to her on the night she picks Dr. Suess. 38 minutes of rhyming when all I really want to do is watch MTV reality shows and drink a vodka collins.