Some Munchkin Thoughts

So, there was a massive fire in Lawrence yesterday that burned down 15 buildings, left 150 people homeless and has been deemed "suspicious" by the authorities.

And the lead story on all of the local news channels? Why, that would be Tom Brady being seen going to Gisele's house with a cast on his foot, of course. Don't let anyone ever say that Bostonians don't have their priorities straight.

I love that channel 7 referred to her as "Gisele Bunchkin". Kinda rhymes with "munchkin". Speaking of Munchkin, she has a new boyfriend, which is apparently causing some issues in her social circle. Back in this post, I told you about a boy that she had a date with a while back (actually a double date with us:-)) but that she didn't really wanna be boyfriend and girlfriend with. Well, she told him that, and I think he was upset, but it passed pretty quickly.

Now, however, one of that boy's very good friends has taken a shine to her, and she likes him quite a bit as well. That isn't sitting too well with the first boy, though, who apparently thinks he has some claim to her. That led to a bit of a fistfight between the boys, a lot of drama at school and Munchkin feeling pretty bad about the whole thing.

As of this morning, I am not sure what she plans to do about it. She was not terribly excited by the idea of boys fighting over her (I still have some things to teach her...lol), and was contemplating just swearing both of them off as boyfriends. At least until like eighth grade...

To be honest, I think she will have a problem with boyfriends for a while. The issue, as I see it, is that she is much more mature than her friends are. I don't really say that to brag...mostly it is just a reflection of who she is and what she has gone through. She lost both parents, moved in with me and survived some family in-fighting. She is, sort of out of necessity, MUCH more independent than most kids her age are. I can tell just by talking to the school parents that they interact with their kids totally differently than I do with her. Which, duh, makes perfect sense.

So I just think that, developmentally, she is a couple years ahead of her classmates. She just handles things differently and approaches her friendships and relationships differently. I don't think that really effects her friendships that much...she has some great friends that she is wonderfully close with...but I do think it has an effect on her interaction with boys. I think she is much better at being friends with them than her girl classmates, but has trouble being a "girlfriend".

To be honest, none of this bothers me. They are all like 12-13 years old, and their ideas of "relationships" include a lot of pretending. Like, you can be "going out" with someone without ever actually going anywhere or doing anything. It doesn't really concern me that she is not very good at that. I think, when the time comes, she will be prepared to interact with people on a more meaningful level. She just needs them to catch up.