It's Hard to be 10.

My poor A.  He's sometimes an anxious kid, and I've written about some of his stuff on here before, like here.  He will keep himself up at night sometimes, worrying about little things like remembering to bring a book to school, or how he can build a cardboard hoop in his room to shoot hoops.

But currently he has a brand new source of anxiety:  girls.

He's 10.  And as young as that seems, I remember having TO-DIE-FOR crushes at that age.  And there is a girl at school who apparently has a crush on him.  And she's an older woman.  A FIFTH GRADER!!!! Cradle robber.  My A is a sweet, innocent 4th grader.  My God, this girl might already wear make up.  Harlet.  Anyway, she sent her friend over the other day to ask A if he would "go out with" her.  (Remember that move?  Yeah, it never worked for me either.)  He said "no thank you".  Then that night he came down in his pj pants after laying in bed for an hour.  He said he couldn't sleep because he's worried about this girl.  His words were, "I'm just worried because she has a crush on me and I'm not ready to date yet."  Oh.  My.  God.  Hilarious.  So hubby and I just acted casual, no biggie, you know, and said, "that's cool, buddy, just be friendly to her.  You certainly don't have to be her boyfriend."  I just kept telling him to be nice to her, though.  I know all too well how awful it is when you are crushing on a guy and he's mean to you.  He seemed fine after our little chat and went to bed.

So this morning we're walking to the end of the driveway to catch the bus, and he says, "mom, it's going to be another hard day."  I asked him why, and he said, "that girl."  He said that his two friends at school are always pushing him over to her to get him to talk to her.  I swear to God, this must be some rite of passage or something.  He doesn't seem traumatized or anything, so I just said he should tell them that he doesn't like it when they do that, or else just talk to her so then they will leave him alone about it.  I don't know what to tell him!  I'm a horrible mom, because I think the whole thing sounds hysterical.  But I don't want A to be terrified of girl germs or anything.  I'm sure he'll figure it out.  And luckily the school year only has a month left, and then this vixen will be moving on to middle school.

OH!  And then, and THEN, last night on his way up to bed A asked me how boobs grow in.  And when.  So now I think this young lady might be getting her boobs.  I told him that we girls are flat like boys when we're little, and then they just start growing when we start growing up, between the ages of 10 and 13 or so (or for me, not until the summer between junior high and high school.  sigh).  Again, just very matter-of-fact.  He was fine with that.  Oh, the conversations I'm sure I will be having soon . . .

Hubby and I were talking about all this young romance and popularity stuff.  It's pure hell when you're a kid.  A has informed us, very calmly, that he's not a "popular" kid.  He said he gets picked last when they're playing football at recess.  And he seems fine with it.  I'm trying not to worry about it until he doesn't seem fine with it, but it's painful.  There's an "it" kid in his grade--the one that runs the fastest, that seems the coolest.  And A is not in his close circle.  We've tried to tell him the typical parent stuff, like how that all shifts and evolves as you get older, and how as long as he's nice to everybody he'll be fine, you know the drill.  But I can tell he's very aware of the pecking order.  So we were talking about how universal this stuff is, once the kids were upstairs.  Hubby had a good observation.  When kids are young like my guys, there is an "it" boy.  The boy that all the girls get starry-eyed for.  The one that they write his name all over their stuff.  The one that they ride bikes past his house in hopes for a glimpse of him.

Then it shifts.  And sometime in early teen years, it turns into the "it" girl.  That one girl who turns all the boys' heads.  The one they're all afraid to approach, unless they're the big jock on campus.  The girl that all the other girls wish they were, until they're wise enough to just be happy with who they are.  I was never the "it" girl.  Or good friends with her.  And I never dated an "it" guy.  But it all worked out in the end.  I know there is no way I can convince my kids that it's not a big deal, because when you're in the thick of it, it is a big deal.  The biggest.  I just have to love them through it, I guess.  And try to make sure they know how great they are anyway.

Augh!  Growing up sucks.