Lolita

Vaughn has chosen his bride to be. We'll call her A. It all began with Vaughn's list of prospective BD partygoers to his upcoming birthday (my most dreaded time of year, besides Christmas). I had assumed it would be an all boy party, given Vaughn's current aversion to girls, but to my surprise, Vaughn requested the attendance of 2 partiers of the female persuasion. Needless to say, this was very shocking to my sensibilities and prompted a maternal interrogation—"Who are they? What are they to you? Do you play with them? Do they speak to you? Do you like them?" This is just a preview of things to come when he's 40 and seriously considering marriage. Maybe I'll be dead by then and spared the agony.

At first, Vaughn was rather ambiguous in his answers, and in perfect denial, I settled myself on the idea that some of our diversity training was paying off, and he had decided to widen his circle of friends to include the token quota of females.

Then Vaughn starts having some man-to-man talks with Dave on his rides home from school. (Dave has had a few blessed work-free days lately. I say blessed to keep myself from panicking--look at the positive.) Vaughn starts ruminating out loud about how he's going to foil a challenger of A.'s affections, a fellow classmate and friend, L.R. He comes up with various ideas, finally settling on the idea of some sort of giant mousetrap contraption. How he plans to sneak this into the Kindergarten room, much less get the supplies for the making of this, is never really addressed. Let's hope this is a "humane" mousetrap.

Dave had prudently decided it was unwise to suggest solutions men have devised in the past (one being jousting) to settle this little disagreement (because the next thing you know, we'd be getting a talk from the principal about how our son, holding a very long stick, maniacally ran headlong at another boy, who also, puzzlingly, was carrying a very long stick).

Now, one obvious resolution to this would be to ask the little seductress who she would like to marry. Dave, being the highly evolved male he is, asked Vaughn about this most practical solution:

"Did you think to ask A. who she would like to marry?"

"No," infusing into this one word that this was the most stupid and ridiculous question any parent could ask, we being the foolish old dolts that we are.

Anyway, as it turns out, Vaughn and L.R. have stated their intentions to marry the fair maid A. (at least I hope we can assume she is a maid). Vaughn has finally felt courageous enough to broach the subject with me, evidently having at last come up with a solution to this sticky conjugal conundrum: They will have a vote among their fellow classmates as to whom is deemed to be the best suitor.

Now this is the latest conversation between the two males:

"Dad, is it okay for kids to kiss?"

"Well, it depends. I would need to know the circumstances." (Now you know if the conversation had been posed to the female counterpart of this parenting duo--me--this conversation would have come to a quick and decisive end--"NO! Neither is it okay for teenagers to kiss nor unmarried adults--EVER!")

Vaughn's answer as to the circumstances of said kiss was, "Well…It would be a boy and a girl!"

Thank God for small favors. Given the previous dialogs, I think we can safely conclude what prompted this question and who the boy and girl are in this scenario. And I thought I wouldn't be dealing with this until he was in his teens, falsely comforted by his present seeming distaste of anything feminine.

A. wisely declined the BD invitation, stating previous commitments. This must be quite the 5-year-old that has her social calendar mapped out 2 weeks in advance, probably feared a confrontation with a more mature female. Yeah, you'd better quake, you little strumpet. I know all about girls, having been one myself. My first kiss was as a Kindergartener in the boys' bathroom, with a fellow boy kindergartner, initiated by me. (Mom, Dad, you didn’t read that.) So from one hussy to another--you'd better watch yourself, A. I've got my eye on you. I know people.