Munchkin goes global

I alluded to this the other day, but now that I have had a chance to hear Munchkin's version of things, as well as that of her friend's Mom, I figured I would fill you in on the whole story. I'll call this one "Munchkin's French Boyfriend", and can subtitle it "THIS is what I have to deal with for five more years until she is 18!"

Munchkin and her friend's family left on Saturday morning, and got settled in and got to the beach by about 3:00 in the afternoon. At approximately 3:07, several boys on the beach decided that they wanted to make friends...lol. Says her friend's Mom with a grin, "Munchkin sure does attract attention from boys, doesn't she?"

The boys were from three French families that were there on vacation. There were five of them, ages roughly 12-15, and a girl that was about the same age (all of whom spoke either pretty good or perfect English...I'm impressed!). In Munchkin's words "They were nice, and they were really cute and their accents were just adorable." So, they hung out for a bit and then they each went their separate ways because their families had some different things to do.

The next day, they were all on the beach again, and spent most of the day hanging out, swimming, flirting, etc. Sometime towards the end of the day, the girl told Munchkin "My brother has a crush on you." (Or, really, it probably sounded something like "My brothzer? He haz ze crush on you!" hee hee). Munchkin felt like he was cute, really nice and pretty overall dreamy, so a romance was born.

The French families were having a party on the beach that night (or maybe the next, I am not sure) and invited Munchkin, her friend and her friend's family. She and le garçon snuck away for a brief private moment, during which she reports he held her hand and appeared totally and completely consumed by his own nerves. I love that she can find that cute;-).

I also love that she can say things like "I could tell that he couldn't concentrate because he wanted to kiss me really badly, and I was hoping he would. But I can't do everything, he has to have some courage of his own." That just cracks me up to no end...

Anyway, the kids all spent most of the week together on the beach or by the pool. It was all pretty tame fun with plenty of adult supervision pretty nearby (although...ahem...when the little frenchie finally worked up the courage to kiss her on about day 5...where were the adults then?:-P). This, however, did not stop Pierre St. Loverboy from asking her to be his girlfriend (no word on exactly how that would work...) and inviting her to spend the entire summer in France with him.

While the offer to spend the entire summer, while quaint, is pretty obviously absurd, his mother did tell Munchkin's friend's mother to relay to me that she was more than welcome to come and visit for real. Not sure I am quite ready to put her on a plane to go and visit foreign strangers, but we can worry about that later (and in truth, I think she viewed this with a certain level of "quaintness"...she didn't actually ask to go and visit, she just said that she had been invited.)

So, that is the story of Munchkin's brief island romance. There is a part of me that thinks I should be scared by things like this...here she goes creating her own personal relationships in strange places where I have no control over the events. I send her on vacation and find out that she is kissing older, foreign boys...

But, if I am going to be really honest, I love that she can do these things. I totally and completely trust that she is capable of managing her own relationships. I trust that she can keep things like this in perspective, and that she is fully aware that these are "cute teen romances" and nothing more serious.

And mostly, I just think that she deserves to have stories like this. She deserves to have fun. She deserves to have adorable boys pining over her. She deserves to have crushes on those boys. She deserves to be able to look at old pictures with her friends when she is 25 and say "Oh my God, do you remember that French boy that fell in love with me in two days? He was cute."

She just deserves to be a regular teenage girl. She will never have a classic, "normal" life. I can't give her one, and I don't think I would want to. All I can hope for is that the lack of normalcy still allows her to experience all of the things that a kid should experience growing up.

Like dashing European admirers:-)