First Date

There is a tradition at the Bolivar school system that parents buy their children carnations for $1 each to be delivered near Valentine's Day each year. Grant and I have never done that, as we have our own Valentine's Day tradition. Grant always gets each of the children a surprise for Valentine''s Day that the children find when they go to breakfast Valentine's Day morning (though, this year, he gave them their Valentine surprise Friday evening--Feb. 12th). He gave Darcy a beautiful bouquet of three white roses. He gave Rayna a red heart filled with chocolates and Doug a blue heart filled with chocolates. "The kids" gave me a dozen red roses arranged with white carnations. (I had made Grant promise he wouldn't spend money on a Valentine's Day thing for me, so he got through the loophole of using the kids!)

Back to the school tradition....since Grant has always done something privately, at home, for the kids, we have never done the school flower thing. Yet, Rayna, always seems to get a flower, anyway. This year, the school delivered flowers were scheduled for the week after Valentine's Day. Friday evening, here came Rayna bouncing home from school with a bright carnation. This year, it was bestowed on her by Tanner. She was so delighted with her flower! She spent much of the evening tending to it...getting it just right in the vase and watering and rewatering it...and finding just the right place to set it. I still say RAYNA is the child that we are going to get gray hairs over when she hits the teen years. She has had the boys flocking over her since she was little bitty. I remember the boys always were drawn to Darcy, too...like little Peeveler boy, who kept getting in trouble for kissing Darcy when they were both two and hanging out together in the church nursery(!)...but, the difference between Darcy and Rayna is that Darcy always viewed any romantic intentions directed towards her with undisguised disdain...whereas her little sister has always BLOSSOMED under such attention. Darcy has ALWAYS had very exacting standards. Rayna has ALWAYS had a policy of universal inclusion! Rayna sees the best in everyone and her heart is wide open to everyone...with the result being she draws the boys like bees to honey. We WILL get gray hairs seeing her through her teen years.

But, then, the years of Darcy's disdain towards any romantic intentions have finally run their course and drawn to a close. She is more than happy to be known as "Kegan's girlfriend" these days. Darcy went out on her first date last Saturday (the day before Valentine's Day). She and Kegan met each other at the local theater and watched "The Lightening Thief" together. Darcy enjoyed herself immensely....drinking her extra large mountain dew and finding more amusement in watching her date's discomfort out of the corner of her eye, than watching the movie itself. Evidently, poor Kegan was a basket of nerves. He twitched and squirmed self consciously all through the movie...painfully aware that he was ALONE with Darcy who was now HIS girlfriend. Poor kid!

Being a mother bear, I was AT the movie theater fifteen minutes before the movie was to end, waiting to retrieve my daughter. I saw them come out together, right on schedule, walking self-consciously about two feet apart (I inwardly approved!). Darcy spotted our car right off. She waited, though, as Kegan called his mom to let her know the movie was over. To Kegan's embarrassment, there was no cell signal at that moment and he couldn't get through to his mom. The two of them came over to the car where the kids and I were waiting for them (Grant was at the doctor's office, really SICK), to see if I could give Kegan a ride home, too. I said, "Sure." I indicated for Darcy to get into the backseat and let Kegan ride in front at which point she declared, "I don't want to ride in back! Kegan can just walk home!" Poor Kegan, he was already dying a thousand deaths, and Darcy was not helping matters! As it was, Darcy reluctantly crawled into the back seat next to her younger siblings and Kegan, even more reluctantly eased into the front seat. You would have thought there was a swaying king cobra sitting into the driver's seat next to him rather than a bland, overweight, middle aged woman. His anxiety was so acute that I was feeling nervous myself, until I caught myself and thought, "This is RIDICULOUS!" I smiled and introduced myself. Kegan stared straight ahead, never so much as turning his head the slightest bit towards me as he uttered a subdued, "hi," in response and (amazingingly) managed to lean even further into the passenger door! I was hoping the door was fully secured. I could see myself trying to explain to his parents why he fell out my moving car! I think he was following the Cesar Milan rule of how to act around an aggressive dog....no look, no talk, no touch! A few blocks later, when we reached his house, he BOLTED from the car like a rabbit from the snare! Poor kid!

I thought that might be the end of their relationship. But, I guess not. Darcy likes him and finds his shyness endearing. Meanwhile, he is smitten over Darcy and is miserably happy.

All I can say is that Darcy has played her cards right. Kegan WANTED Darcy to be his girlfriend a long time ago, but she declined...opting instead, to play the role of good friend and coaching him how to win and woo another girl instead. She gave him all sorts of pointers and regular advice on how to woo this girl...then, months after that relationship had died out and Kegan was fully instructed(!), Darcy decided he was ready to be her boyfriend!

I snapped a photo of Darcy just before we pulled out of the driveway, on the way to her first date ever. Of course she objected to me taking a picture, but I got away with it by asking her, "Would you rather a take a picture of you, now, alone or wait and take one of you and Kegan together?" Of course, she did NOT want the embarrassment of her camera happy mother insisting the couple pose for a photo, so, in the hopes that cooperating now would mean her mother would NOT embarrass her by pulling out the camera in front of Kegan, she let me take the photo. Don't tell Darcy, but, her mother, using Ninja skills, DID (without ever being detected!) snap a lone photo of her and Kegan together after they came out of the theater and were trying to reach his mother! Some day (years and years from now) Darcy will appreciate that this photo exists!