I love Headless Roosters

It was bound to happen eventually and that day is upon us. Kid 2, female age 9, has discovered boys. She's not boy-crazy, but now her doodles include hearts and a particular boys name (to minimize the parental embarrasment that I cause her, no names will be used in this post, however intials will be).

At first, listening to her talk, it seemed like this boy was the school crush - he's in the next grade up. But as Kid 2 talked to her friends, she was able to find out his email address from a common friend. What made it obvious that it wasn't just a crush was that she wrote to him. Since, they've traded a few emails and some IM's. He even asked if he could add her to his contact list, which incidentally I didn't realize that was the proper protocol.

Last week, Kid 2 and I were talking about some things (we were talking about the aforementioned emails) and I realized that spring break was coming up for her. I had the following internal dialog with myself (monologue or soliloqouy, I'm not sure):

Spring break is coming up. Maybe she'd like to do something with this boy? Maybe they could go to the movies together. WTF! What am I thinking? This is my little girl!

It's not that I'm worried that this kid has any nefarious intentions, in fact I ended up being the "judge" (really just asking questions of the kids) for his science project. He seems like a good kid. It's more about do I really want to start my daughter on dating, even if it is just going to the movies.

Which brings us to the title of the post. I'm not suggesting beheading the young man, though I did intentionally break down and clean my rifle when my sister brought some boy home, much older than she was. We went out to dinner early this week and Kid 2 was doodling on her kids menu and wrote, "I heart Pink Markers."

She wasn't writing about her favorite color, but using the boy's initials. In response to this, my wife wrote, "I heart Bitter Roots," which with a touch of irony also happens to be my initials. Not to be out-done, I scratched my head for a second and came up with a way to use my wife's initials in, "I heart Headless Roosters."

I guess it was bound to happen and its cute; I'm just not sure if I'm really ready for this part.