It started with a simple sentence.

I like boys.

And then Pat picked up on it, “so who is this Jacob kid?”

I smiled, “she mentioned him to you too?”

Maile came home from school one day feeling sad. She said Jacob was not being nice to her. I pressed on, “is he hurting you, is he chasing you, is he teasing you?”

Maile: No. He’s dest not talking to me.

I gave her the ol’ boys versus girls talk. How sometimes boys ignore or chase girls when they like them. I told her that surely Jacob liked her, but he was probably just being shy.

Maile: Noooo…he dest doesn’t like me.

She took to mentioning Jacob’s name quite often. She talked about how she tried really hard to be nice to him, but that he still wasn’t nice to her. She would tell me when Jacob was or was not at school. She talked about who was chasing Jacob on the playground. Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. I’ve never seen anything like it.

And then Pat with his “who is this Jacob kid?” questions. I’ve found the whole thing quite amusing. Isn’t six a little young to have a crush? Maybe she just really wants to be friends with him?

On her birthday she was excited because apparently the teacher let’s the birthday kid choose a friend to shake a maracca or something. I asked Maile who she was going to choose, thinking it would be tough to pick between her two girlfriends that ride the bus with her and come to daycare at our house.

maile: Hmmmm…I dest don’t know….I sink I might pick Jacob.

Naturally.

maile: I sink maybe Jacob will be happy wis me if I choosed him an he will be nice to me.

Unfortunately Jacob missed school that day.

Today I took Maile to school late. The Kindergartners were all sitting down to lunch in the cafeteria. The second we walked in Maile scanned the room for Jacob, “Ders Jacob Mom”.

He was sitting at the end of the table with a gaggle of other boys. I sat Maile down with her lunch and I did what any loving mother would do…I marched right over to Jacob and bent down to his level and spoke in my nicest mommy voice.

“Hey Bud! Is your name Jacob!?!”

He said yes and bashfully started fiddling with his milk.

“I’m Maile’s mom…and you know what? She tells me you’re a really nice boy and that she really likes you.”

He grinned quietly to himself, but did not reply. I quickly rubbed his back, smiled at him and said, “thanks for being so nice to my little girl!”

I gave Maile a quick kiss goodbye and promptly forgot all about my little talk with Jacob.

That is…until Maile jumped off the school bus this afternoon. She smiled all the way home and I thought, “boy she’s sure in a good mood today!”

She walked in the house, tossed her backpack on the floor, and looked up to me with her happy sparkling eyes, “guess what Mom?”

me: What is it? Did you have a good day today??

maile: Jacob was nice to me today.

I’m so proud of myself….but Maile is really going to regret this when she sees me march into her Biology class to talk to her crush when she’s a junior in high school. I’ll stroll in there all confident-like during a final exam, wink at Maile in a “don’t worry! I know what I’m doing!!” kind of way and bend down to the kids level to tell him that I sure appreciate him being nice to my daughter. HINT HINT.

If Maile gives me a hard time about it I will direct her to this post and be all, “seeee it works!”