Of girls and magma

Perhaps one of our biggest regrets in removing Jamie from his current school is that there is a group of adorable little girls who seem totally smitten with him. We were at a birthday party at one of these bouncy-castle places a couple of weeks ago and one of the girls was there and spent the entire 2 hours chasing him and, when she caught him, tackling him. At first, he was happy to see her and they had a good time. Eventually though I think he began developing some personal space issues and started to run away. Whenever he gave her the slip, amidst the din and rancor of 30 bouncing kids you could hear "Jaaaaamiiiieeeee?!!!!" ringing out and the chase would be on.

Of course we always want him to be nicer to the girls too. Recently Sarah took the boys to a playground not too far from school and yet another adorable, slightly older girl from school was there. She is, in fact, the best friend of Jamie's best friend's older sister. We had always had the sense the they treated the boys with disdain, and probably much of the time they do, but in this case her face absolutely lit up when she saw Jamie. They circled each other for a bit, but when Jamie sat down to do some digging she came over with a big smile and said "Hi Jamie!!!!!" Sarah was fascinated, but Jamie only gruffly responded. She asked what he was doing and he said, without looking up, "Digging for magma." No offer of letting her help was made. Sarah wanted to tell him to stop digging and be nice, but at this point, Connor, perhaps sensing an opportunity, happily marched up and introduced himself. "Are you Jamie's brother?" she asked with another big smile and got a much more enthusiastic response from little C.