On The Other Hand...

Yesterday I blogged about wanting my son to find good friends. I was talking about boys, of course, since my son is a boy. I never gave a thought to how Zane treats the girls he meets, and I should have.

We went to a party for a beautiful girl, Maggie, who turned three. The very first thing Zane did was ask about the cake, because he is genetically programmed to like cake. Larry and I began attempting to do some mixing and mingling while scoping out the house to locate the bathroom. (First rule of going to a new place: ALWAYS locate bathrooms before you need them.) Zane had other plans; he wanted to see Maggie, a child he has only seen three or four times. We had to postpone our bathroom hunt while we searched for the Birthday Girl.

Zane approached Maggie, told her 'happy birthday' and tried to hug her.

Maggie, who probably saw Zane as a complete stranger, was having none of it. Her expression clearly said "Ew! A boy!" I didn't blame Maggie one bit for her reaction; I certainly would not want a strange boy to hug me without provocation.

Maggie walked off.

Zane followed her.

We followed him.

"Maggie!" He followed her.

"Maggie!" And followed her.

"Maggie!" And followed her.

Maggie kept turning around and eyeing Zane, but kept moving. My son was a man on a mission, but so was she.

At this point, I am getting pretty tired of doing all this following. It made me hungry, and also, my feet hurt. On my third time past the buffet table, I stopped to get some chips and salsa, and then some more, leaving my husband to continue following Zane by himself.

In my defense, it was really good salsa.

By then my quarry has disappeared, and I realize that I would be a terrible stalker. This depresses me for a moment, since I'd like to think of myself as relatively competent at something so simple as keeping my own child in sight.

I distracted myself from my general unworthiness with some more salsa.

Maggie wandered by, followed by my son. I picked up the trail.

"Maggie!"

"Maggie!"

"Maggie!"

My son is relentless in his determination to speak to Maggie. I start to intervene, to tell my only son that the way to a girl's heart is NOT repeating her name over and over until she likes you. But Maggie has been stopped in her tracks by the many adults around the food, and Zane finally catches up to her.

He grabs her hand. I cringe.

"Maggie! I your friend!" Zane said emphatically. Then he dropped her hand and wandered off. I looked over at Larry and Maggie's mom, and stifled a giggle.

Zane had said what he wanted to say and he was done.

Maggie stared at the back of Zane's head as he walked off. There was a nearly imperceptible shake of her head.

I swear I saw her roll her eyes before she wandered outside.