Max and danny

As has been the case with my parenting experiences to date, I've been surprised by yet another classic parent/child moment that has happened way before I thought it would...

Brianna came home from preschool today and informed me that she has a boyfriend. A boyfriend! I didn't know quite how to feel about this. On the one hand, I was a bit shocked that I was going to have to worry about boys already, on the other hand, I found it pretty darn amusing. Amusement won out and I decided to play it cool. "Really?" I said, "What's his name?"
"It's Max," she told me. "And he's so nice and we play together all the time at school and I really like him.... I'm deciding if I want to marry him or Noah."

I suppose it's not that surprising really. After all, we are talking about a little girl who, at least once a week, has a "wedding" day where she puts on one of her nice dresses and informs me that she's getting married to Noah today. She often refers to him as her "little husband" and rather quite enjoys bossing her little husband around. But now, apparently he has competition for the title of little husband. And I do mean little, because I found out that actually, Max is in the class below Bree...which means, she likes a younger man! Oh my!

Meanwhile, Noah is having a love affair of his own, with "danny" which is Noah speak for candy. Several times a day he will drag me over to the pantry, point, and say, "MaMom danny!" And I usually say, "No, no candy. How 'bout an apple or crackers?" Usually he's okay with that answer, sometimes he throws a fit, and sometimes he decides to collude with Bree to try and go around Mom's decree. He'll run over to big sister and say, "Na (his version of Brianna), danny!" And, even though he says it in a whisper, it's not a very quiet whisper, more like a stage whisper, and I'm onto the plot.

Ah...young love...Max and danny.