Pucker up...

Christ on a bike, Mean Mommy does not have her sea legs back and this first full week back at work is kicking my ass. Add to the hectic drag-my-kids-around schedule, the fact that my body is probably in withdrawal from alcohol and sugar which were both consumed in large quantities via birthday cake and champagne on a daily basis (that cake took a while to eat) and I have had other adults around to help with the offspring for the better part of two weeks, it's no wonder I feel as shaky as a first-time mother who suddenly woke up to a house containing three children who all need to be put back on their school day schedules and be told the cookie free-for-all is over.

Speaking of shock, I am only now recovering from one I received courtesy of my eldest a while back. Drum roll please...she had her first kiss. I know! She is six-friggin'-years-old! Let me begin at the beginning.

So I pick #1 up from school the other day and immediately upon entering the van, our car pool kid blurts out, "Jake kissed (#1)* during gym!" After I picked my jaw up off the graham-cracker encrusted floor, I asked, "Really? Where on your body, #1?", picturing a chaste black and white photo of cheek-kissing kids holding red roses from dorm posters in my college days. "On my mouth", my eldest replies getting that weird, oh-shit-am-in-trouble? look. Shock does not begin to describe what I was feeling and in an effort to not totally lose my shit and give carpool kid something else to talk about, I calmly said, "We'll talk about this at home."

The story goes something like this. Jake, whom I originally thought was #1's friend, apparently has the hots for her. So during line-up after gym he asked if he could kiss her and my kid's reply? "You can try." which he did, successfully. Not until I walked #1 to school the next day in order to check out Casanova did I figure out who this kid is. I vaguely remember her telling me there was this boy who liked to put his head on her shoulder at their table and Hubby telling tales of "some weird hugging kid" during his visit as Special Person of the Day, but I had no visual. Once we reached the school yard, however, the "you can try" aspect of the scenario became clear as he is a full head and a half shorter than my daughter, and while she is a tall drink of water, he is Lilliputian by anyone's standards. He must have needed a boost from some of his buddies just to clear her clavicle.

After having the whole "boundaries" and "we don't kiss anyone in our families until we are married" discussion, during which she busted me and pointed out her not-yet-married uncle and his girlfriend kiss, forcing me to change the wording to "when you are a grown-up" which led to another discussion about when that actually happens (I used college as my bench mark, but that is clearly a lie if you have met anyone who has a zero at the front of their graduation year), we put the whole event behind us. Although I did hear at conferences how Jake desperately told the teacher after "the incident", as it is now being referred to, that he is "IN LOVE with her!" - emphasis being his.

Dear Lord, I am not ready for this romance thing. Although I clearly remember having a crush on a kid named Chris, with a bowl cut and giant buck teeth, in second grade I thought I at least had a year before I had to discuss "boy feelings" and at least ten before I had to worry about actual physical contact. Yes, I know. I'm fooling myself and eleven year old kids are having sex and talking about it on Jerry Springer, but I, dear readers, was a good old-fashioned dork growing up with a side of prude for good measure. And I while I do not look forward to the social pain it will cause her, I had become quite comfortable with the idea my eldest was following in her mother's socially awkward footsteps. Because as we all know, the geeks shall inherit the earth. My philosophy? Loser in high school? Winner in life.

Now calm down, all of you who were blessed with clear skin, cooperative hair and good social fortune from the Puberty Gods. I'm sure there are some of you out there who do not deserve to burn in hell for eternity because you were actually decent to those on the lower rungs of the social ladder. But do I take way too much pleasure in the fact that, Kim, my middle school nemesis became an unwed, Bon Jovi-fringe-jacket-wearing teenaged mother right after graduation, and spent her twenties wiping asses while I got my bachelor's in Chemistry? You bet your ass I do. So do I hope my girls (and boy, let's not discriminiate) wind up, either by choice or lack of opportunity, "less experienced" when they go to college? Um, who do I sell my soul to to ensure this?

So while I'm sure my daughter's first physical encounter was entirely innocent, as well as involving a boy who I'm pretty certain is King of the Dipshits**, I will hope this is her last close encounter of the boy kind until she's old enough to roll her eyes and sufficiently think I'm lame. But knowing kids these days, that might be next week.
Lord help me.

*Names have been changed to protect my ass among my local readership.
**Bonus points if you can tell me what 80's movie this moniker is from.