It finally happened!!

I knew this day was coming...and yet, I dread that it has come.

And in someways rejoice at it.

My daughter, who at a mere 11 years old is in sixth grade, came running into my classroom, out of breath, with three of the girls from her class in tow. She breathlessly exclaimed, "Mom! I HAVE to talk to you, outside, RIGHT NOW!" Mind you, I was in the middle of wrapping up a lesson with my fourth graders, but she seemed quite urgent so I thought it might be an emergency. I thought it might be a medical issue not uncommon to pre-adolescent girls.

I followed the four bubbling, giggling girls out into the hall.

That's when my daughter burst out "MOM! JACKSON likes me!!"

Stunned. I was stunned. Not that my baby, my first born, my INNOCENT little eleven year old might have a crush...no, I am stunned that she would drag me out of a classroom where I am TEACHING to tell me this. Stunned and kind of honored. Not every eleven year old would want so badly to inform their MOTHER with this information.

She thinks she's in love.

It takes me back.

There will be so many. So many heartbreaks. So much joy. Giggles, and blushing, and tingling all over. There is no other time like it in a young girl's life. She will never again feel that exileration, the spinning realization that someone she likes likes HER. It's a mystery, built into all of us by God, to propigate a species. She's like a whirling spinning bubble of hormones right now...ready to explode at any moment, into the teenager that she almost is.

Enjoy the journey.