Tiny Crushes

     Somewhere among hundreds of old photos sitting in cardboard storage boxes is a picture of me when I was just a preschooler giving the girl next door a big hug.  Jackie was a little younger than I but we bonded like we'd known each other all out short lives.

    I don't know what happened to Jackie.  We moved when I was in the first grade and I lost track of her.  We ended up going to different school systems so the possibility of a chance encounter was not in the cards.

    Friends made within the first five years of life are special regardless of sex.  But when they are boy-girl it provides a hint of what's to come when growing up leads to romance and possibly even a lifelong commitment.  So it's sad when you see little boys and girls playing, hugging and talking together, knowing that their instant chemistry some day will be lost to time and the inevitability of change.

    I remember taking my three-year-old grandson to a library when I babysat him while his parents worked.  While there he quickly made friends with a young girl about his age, together flitting from play station to play station while giggling and bantering about the fun they were enjoying.  Off to the side sat an aquarium with live fish which the kids returned to many times, marveling at the fish as they slowly meandered about their small tank.

    The underwater scene particularly fascinated my grandson who at the time was hooked on watching the trailer for the vintage horror classic Attack of the Crab Monsters.  In fact, he tried to make his own play date with his instant girlfriend asking her to come to lunch.  "We can have sandwiches and watch crab monster," he told her.

    However, soon the mother called to the girl that it was time to go.  The mom made a point of having her daughter say goodbye to my grandson.  Then they parted never to see each other again.  Now over 12 years later my grandson has had a steady girlfriend for the past several months.  They probably don't spend spare moments eating sandwiches and watching Attack of the Crab Monster.  But you never know.

    When I walked my youngest grandson Miles to the local park a couple weeks ago he met up with Sonja, a girl like him just two years old, but several months younger.  They go to the same pre-school and were thrilled to meet up by chance and play together at the park.  "I love Sonja," Miles confessed to me later.  From what I heard from Miles' dad who picks him up from daycare and observed the two playing together, the feeling was mutual.

    But Miles was moved into a group of older kids and could no longer play with Sonja, their group's outside play areas being separated by a chain link fence.  My son told me when he picked up Miles one day this past week, Miles was sitting on the ground at the fence, talking to Sonja who was sitting on the opposite side.

    It was a good example of the change that is inevitable as life goes on.  But it's still sad to witness.