The Jezebel [Not her real name. :-)]

For the past two weeks, The Boy has been talking to me about ‘Jezebel’. His friend really likes Jezebel, but The Boy likes her, too. Suddenly some other fu – um -female has the power to make my son happy or to crush him like a bug. She gets to decide which it will be. I have no power here. Do you see where I’m going with this? We have the beginnings of a soap opera playing out with complete sincerity and accompanying heartbreak in a third grade classroom. I want to laugh. I want to smack the little tramp. I want to hug The Boy so close that he squirms and pushes me away.

I met her last week at the Valentine’s Day party. I’m sure I must have met her at the Halloween party (sorry, FALL party) and the Christmas party (sorry, WINTER party), but she held no importance in The Boy’s life and so I did not commit her name or face to memory. Now it’s different. Now I eyed the enemy child up and down with a calculating squint. I’m sure the theme from High Noon was playing in the background while I squared off with this 8 year old floozy. Clearly, he can do WAAAY better, but that isn’t the point. The point is that he wants to ‘go out’ with her. (Seriously? They call it going out? There’s no car involved. No movies. No romantic picnics. Just chase and catch games on the playground. Phhht. Whatever.) Anyway, I had no choice but to smile my fakest smile and tell her how much I loved the Valentine Box she made. (It actually was pretty creative.) Then I winked at her and gave her an extra fruit roll up. See? I’ve got my boy’s back. That roll up may sway the balance. Maybe Mom’s not so powerless after all. I’ll keep you posted.

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By the way, I’ve gone back and edited my previous posts to remove names. There are some really weird people out there. Nuff said.