One happened last year. A girl accidentally made him bump into a door, and this gave him a huge black eye. Then, she developed a crush on him. She’s very cute (in my opinion), but as he puts it “bossy and mean.” This year, they’ve kind of become friends. So that’s nice.

This year another girl–we’ll call her Ann–has apparently told her friends that she loves Deep Thinker. He tells me in horror “THE WHOLE SECOND GRADE knows about it! It’s very embarrassing!” as he makes a horrified face. Poor thing.

I was trying to make him feel better. I said, “Honey, but Ann is so adorable.”

His response: “Don’t be fooled Mom. She’s NOT as nice as she looks.”

As I was tucking him in, he told me he had a secret. The secret was that he “falled in love” with a girl named Abby from his class. As he explained, this is a “major secret,” because Abby would “totally freak out” if she knew.

I asked him what it is about her that made him fall in love. He said, “She’s really pretty because she has lots of sweat in her hair. I like girls who have sweat.” After a few questions, I confirmed that by “sweat,” he did indeed mean perspiration. (I have seen her, and she’s cute, somewhat of a tomboy).

When I asked how long he had loved her, he said since about October. When I asked if Abby loves him, my son said he doesn’t know:)

The other day he was trying to impress a little three-year old girl he likes to flirt with. He kicked her so hard she fell down–not at all impressive. Huge time out for this one. (Time-outs are not yet working, though he hates them, and he seems to understand that it’s a form of discipline. The discussions haven’t yielded big results either, but the ground work has been established.) I trust he’ll learn over time.

A few weeks later my father and sister took him to the park and reported that Rowdy Rebel AGAIN was roughing up the girls. Come on guy, show some charm!