I've been replaced

Let me start off by saying that when I was younger, I definitely did not have boys falling all over me. I was "the friend". Whatever it was that my friends had to attract all that attention in 1988, I certainly didn't have it. Looking back, I think it must have been the hair. I never had bangs high enough to catch the boys. Yep, that must have been the reason. I really did have to walk between two of my friends to school so their ratted-up and hairsprayed side ponytails wouldn't stick together. They looked like Barbies and had all kinds of boyfriends. How did I miss that crucial piece?

Anywho, since then, I have become much more attractive. I have had the experience of having boys fall all over me in adoration. They just happen to be little. At about age 4, they turn into sticky-sweet, lovey-doveys who can't get enough of me. "I loooooooove you, Mom! And you're pretty!" "I'm never going to love any other mom but you!" "When I grow up, I want to marry you." I've been attacked by my very own 4-year-old kissing monster, who used to kiss my arms incessantly. Yes, it was a little creepy.

Two of these boys have grown out of this drippy stage, and with the older one, I am lucky if I get more than the lean-in, armless hug. He grunts at me when I say, "I love you." I knew it was all over in first grade when after helping in the classroom, I bent over to kiss his forehead, and he said, "Not at school, Mom!" I suppose he loves me on the inside--you know, where it counts.

Now I have a kindergartener. He has a happy, sunshiny yellow personality, and he is very loving. He's into fo-hawks and Spongebob. I've been at the top of his list for a while now. Until Monday.

"Mom, Can I please have some of those pretty flowers from our yard?" I naturally assumed he meant to give them to me. I was wrong. "I want to take them to school," he declared.

I have been replaced.

Kindergarten teachers are the equivalent of Barbie doll friends to a 5-year-old boy. I cannot compete with Mrs. D any more than I could with Angie or Denise in high school. And if I ratted my ponytail, he would disdainfully tell me that I smelled like "girl", and it would be too sticky.

What's a mom to do? Make sure he has a little brother to replace him. That's what I did. I'm not ready to give up my very small it factor yet.