A New Girl in Town

Baxter appears to be engaged. (Yes, for the fourth time.) First, Ella was his "top friend" in the class (her old-fashioned phrase for "best friend"). But then Ella's mom had a funny dream about Ella marrying Baxter and she mentioned it in front of her impressionable daughter, who, by the end of that school day, had decided that this was an especially good idea. It took Baxter a day or so to jump on board, but once he did he was, well...on board.

"I think I should marry Ella," he whispered loudly in my ear while snuggling in our bed the next morning at about 5:45 AM. "Why is that, honey?" I asked groggily. "Because I love her. And I will never get divorced from her."

Well, it went on from there. Mentioning Ella with a goofy grin every 5 seconds all day. Carrying a little flower she had made out of tissue paper and a pipe cleaner on a walk to the park and pretending to drop it in sewers or store mail slots along the way, then dramatically pulling it back out and saying "Oops! I better not put it in there! This is from ELLA!" And this has been highly dramatic (and amusing) from both sides of the fence. Ella's mom reported that Ella went home one day and said, "I plucked up enough courage to tell Baxter I loved him today and he didn't laugh or run away and tell and didn't think it was icky, he smiled and said he loved me too!!" Her mother ran and wrote it down in her journal. Priceless.

Ella's family came over for pizza a Friday night soon after the "engagement", and he had the time of his life playing with her and her little sister, Gillie. He cried when she went home, which I figured was because he was exhausted. But no, he was really blue the next morning and was an absolute bear to be with. "I didn't want Ella to leave! I wanted her to stay forever!", he moaned. If this is what he's like now when his "girl" isn't around, I can only imagine what we have ahead of us when he's a teenager. God help me!

Ella's mom and I exchanged astonished looks recently, both admitting that our kids were waaaay ahead of us in this department; we'd both married our first boyfriends. Needless to say we didn't meet them in kindergarten, either.