Crush

Do you remember your first? One of the surprises of parenting — the unexpected sort of thing, that you don’t read about in any books or even hear about anecdotally, came when Aodán was five and he developed a crush on a little girl in his preschool class — he would come home and talk about how Leah had worn her hair in pigtails that day and how much he liked it. His feelings clearly went beyond the friendship he felt with many children (not too mention his sheer solipsistic obliviousness to the existence of many others). He was despondent on the days she didn’t come to school, joyful on the days he got to go to her house and play. And since he was the only little boy in the class I was aware of doing this (co-op preschool, I get...

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