Does it get any better?

We went over to one of my colleagues house for a barbecue on Sunday night. They have two kids, one of whom is a remarkable, preternaturally intelligent, thoughtful girl who just turned 10. Jamie absolutely adores her, and always has. She drew a picture of the two of them once and he carried it around and slept next to it for weeks. He gets a little shy around her, however. We had prepped him because she is a big Obama supporter (she went to the rally in Houston and is planning on attending the caucus tonight - we think she should be a superdelegate). We had him all ready to say "We want Obama to be president" (which we do of course) and even gave him some of the reasons why. But he clammed up when she asked him. All he managed was to ask me to tell her that he is good at baseball (which he is in fact).

Later, they sat next to each other at dinner and Jamie ate hamburger more efficiently than I've ever seen him eat of any food at one sitting. Then chocolate milk was offered and she came to pour the syrup into his cup. "Tell me when to stop," she told Jamie. He, however, clearly had no intention of doing any such thing, ever. The girl of his dreams, pouring as much chocolate syrup as he wanted? No way he was going to cut that short!