Here's a little tale of elementary-school romance.
Sam was out most of last week -- Tuesday, Wednesday, most of Thursday (sent home with a fever) and Friday. By Friday night, however, she had been fever-free since noon Thursday, when she was sent home, so I agreed that we could go see "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" at family movie night at her school.
As we were walking in, we bumped into her teacher, Mrs. S, who hugged her and asked how she was feeling. Just inside the door, we ran into a boy from her class, and Mrs. S asked him, "Hey, do you want me to go get the card you made for Sam?"
When she brought it to us, we opened the envelope and found an honest-to-goodness real store-bought get-well card with "Feel better soon Sam" written very neatly inside.
And he even included pizza stickers.
Sam thanked him, he mumbled something back, and then he darted away.
A few minutes later, when we were in line picking up our drinks and popcorn, the boy came up to me -- not Sam, but me -- and said, "Could Sam come sit with me during the movie?"
"Sure," I said. "How about if we come look for you when we're out of line?"
"OK!" he said, running off again.
I asked if she'd like to sit with him and she said, "Sure."
Well, when we got to the seating area, we discovered many of the kids had brought blankets to spread on the gym floor -- and this boy had asked Sam to sit with him because he wanted to share his blanket -- complete with smiley faces, which Sam liked -- with her.
And here comes my favorite part: He sat at one end of the blanket, with his back to her, and didn't talk to her the entire time. Well, OK, he did turn around at one point early in the movie and say, "Hey, that girl's name is Sam, like yours!" And Sam said, "Yeah, I know!"
That was it.
I didn't even sit with them. I politely found a seat nearby and just kept an eye on them.
Afterward, when I asked Sam if the boy had talked to her at all, she said, "No. I tried and tried to talk to him a bunch, but he wouldn't say anything back."
Ahhhhhh, c'est l'amour.
"I politely found a seat nearby and just kept an eye on them."
Yep, there will be a lot of that going on in the next, oh, two decades or so.