Ahhh...Young Love.

Or maybe: "Ahhh! Young Love!" It's a tossup.

My little man's best friend is a girl. And a bit of a tomboy at that. Talk about your '80s high school movie.

And they are inseparable. So much so that they had to be, well, separated this year, class-wise: they were so disruptive in the first grade that the teacher made absolutely sure they were assigned to different teachers for the second. Always talking to each other, always passing notes, whispering, sitting together at lunch, and so on. But the truly funny thing about their relationship? It's also a rocky one. She thinks he's insensitive; he thinks she gets offended too easily. He can be infuriatingly argumentative; she's a master of the Silent Treatment (this drives him insane).

I got to see a lot of this firsthand last year. Having no job, I decided to volunteer a couple hours a day in his classroom...making copies, helping kids with their math and sight reading, and just generally helping maintain order. Time and again, the same scenarios played out.

Enter Chloe, stage right. "Duncansmom, I'm not talking to Duncan!!" Though the teacher always referred to me by "Mrs." and my last name, the kids permanently labeled me "Duncansmom" anyway. She stalks off dramatically.

Enter Duncan. "Mom, Chloe won't talk to me! I accidentally elbowed her and I didn't MEAN to she was right behind me and I didn't know she was there!"

"Well, did you explain that it was an accident?"
"Yes."
"Did you tell her that you're sorry?"
"Yes!!"

"Well..." Really, what can I do? I shrug. "Give her time then, baby. If she's going to be mad, she's going to be mad." He stalks off in turn, mumbling, "Girls!!"

And so it goes on to this day, though they no longer disrupt class time. Just last week I was informed that, due to an altercation on the playground, Chloe was in fact not speaking to him. He has learned roll with it a bit more, be patient and wait for her to cool off; however, the chalkboard suggests that it still aggravates him a bit:

Oh, these tender moments.

I wonder...how many more grades before she's his 'girlfriend'?