My eldest is 10. He is an adorable kid. Funny and a born leader. But you know, I could give him a good smack every now and then (just tongue in cheek speak). He’s a bit too big for his boots sometimes. But overall he’s a pretty cool kid, popular… oh and apparently he’s just ‘discovered’ girls.
*insert scream here* I don’t want my little boy to discover girls just yet!
Ok, so he’s also be mortified if he found out I was blogging about this, but it’s all relevant, all about sharing my life and my family. He’ll want to read about this in years to come. Well, if he doesn’t, I will want to remind myself about all of these precious (and hilarious) moments in life.
2 weeks ago I was in the kitchen and out of blue a conversation was started by him:
Cruise: I have a girlfriend you know.
Me: Oh, wow, do you? Who?
Cruise: *name* (I thought I should save her from being named on my blog!)
Me: Ok, she’s lovely…. (and then we chatted about her for a moment)
Me: So how do you become boyfriend and girlfriend? What happens? (I was curious. Do they still get someone else to ask for them? Do they even talk to each other?)
Cruise: (screeches) Oh now you’re being ridiculous and don’t you go telling everyone!!!
Touchy. Ooops, I’ve blogged about it. You won’t tell anyone, right? Better not or you’re dead.
Later that evening my husband was going off about how many deodorant bottles were in this house and asked why a 10 year old needed more than him? I made the massive mistake of saying under my breath “because Cruise needs to smell good for his girlfriend.”
The screaming and throwing himself on the lounge was indescribable. I didn’t realise the no telling anyone meant his own father! I swear he was in another part of the house – how could he have heard that! I apologised profusely and all was forgiven. We didn’t talk about the girlfriend again…
Until…
2 weeks later.
My sister-in-law and I were chatting on the phone. She has a 10 year too at the same school. Cruise and his cousin are great mates and play together at school every day (they were in the same class last year, but wisely the teachers separated them this year!).
We were talking about the girlfriend thing as apparently her son has one too. We had a little laugh about it all.
I decided to grab Cruise’s ipod touch and check out his BUMP messages. I know he and his cousin Bump each other lots.
Well, well, well…what did I find? What little monkey’s. I scrolled through message after message where they ‘fought each other’ about whose girlfriend was “sexier and hotter”. Sexy, sexy, hot, hot. The words keep showing on the screen.
My jaw hit the floor and I also had tears rolling down my cheeks with laughter. They were having serious conversations about giving their girlfriends a present and about being excited to go to the school disco because the girls would be there.
Ok, so I realised this was probably not ok. Afterall, they were 10 and we’d not yet needed to give them ‘ boundaries’. Plus, they are at a Catholic School! So boundaries were needed to be put in place.
When Cruise got home I quietly took him to the bedroom and in my calm voice (not my yelling voice from yesterday’s post!) I explained what I’d found.
He went silent. He was embarrassed. I also felt sorry for him!
I explained that it was not ok to use those words about a girl. I was happy for him to have a girlfriend, but she has a Mum and a Dad and they probably wouldn’t like it if they knew he used those words about her. I said you don’t hear your Dad getting around saying those words about women, so maybe we could just use words like “pretty and nice”. He agreed and apologised.
Ok, boundary was set.
I then did the “now if there are any questions you have, or people are saying things at school you aren’t sure about, then ask Mum and I’ll give you the answers you need.” I was feeling all in control and had this discussion in the bag.
He then did the “oh now you’re being stupid and carrying on!!”
Hahahahaha!!! Ok, so maybe we’re not ready for the birds and the bees talk. I know it’s coming. I probably thought it would be next year???
What do you reckon?
It’s only the beginning…ahhhhhh.