so I was like…you know

My daughter is in the fourth grade. She is VERY beautiful and I am not just saying that. People stop Heath and me - total strangers - at grocery stores and the park to let us know how beautiful Miss Summer is. We try not to stress her outside beauty too much as we do not want her to depend on her looks to get by in the world. Sure being attractive helps, but beauty is a fleeting thing. And we all know your brain and health can sustain you much longer than youth and beauty.

Well, boys are beginning to notice her. I’ve come across the occasional love note crumpled up in her backpack and have heard her talking with friends about how Samuel splashed water on Summer and no one else! (That was big stuff when we were kids!) It is all sweet and innocent, right?

Then comes Tony. I really don’t know much other than what Summer has told me. She’s described to me how he hawks lugies in his mouth, swallows them and then says, “Umm good.”  According to her, he brags how his parents don’t care if he is clean or dirty and that is why he stinks so badly. Any parent could see that this boy comes from a very broken home. It is very sad. Tony recently decided to make known his admiration for my daughter in a note. He wrote, “You look like Avril Lavine. I want to do it with you.”

Do WHAT with my daughter? Does he know what IT means? The rational part of me tells me that he has picked up on this phrase from someone older than him and that he has NO CONCEPT of what “IT” means, but the protective side, the side that wants my daughter to stay little for just a little, tiny bit longer, wants to give this kid and his parents a piece of my mind. However, I called the school and spoke to the office. The rational part of me won because Summer is growing up, and I really can’t hit that kid as much as I’d like to.

I suspect that Summer is also beginning to realize that she is about to change drastically. These next ten years will be trying for her, Heath and me. But I know Summer is going to steer through this pretty clearly. She has an AMAZING relationship with her dad, she is a musician at heart and she is as smart as hell. (GATE kid!) The fact that she can come to me and talk about this says a lot about who she is and our relationship. Sure we get into our mother/daughter tiffs every few weeks, but she has the security of a mama bear and she knows it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 1:58 pm and is filed under Summer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.