Ah...Young Love

Meredith and Jake, sitting in a tree...

So I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Meredith has her first official boyfriend. His name is Jake and he's in the "other" preschool class. Which really just means that Meredith only gets to see / play with Jake during recess. His name first came up early in the school year when I would ask Meredith about her day. She would focus mostly on the day's snack and what they did when they played outside. No big surprise there. So she would talk about how they played "chase" with the boys. Come to find out this means that the boys run after the girls, trap the girls up against the fence and wait for other girls to come rescue those trapped girls. I'm guessing there is a lot of squealing and screaming involved, but that's pure speculation. Meredith would always comment on how fast Jake was. She sometimes gets notes in her backpack from him. Most of them root on a favorite Kansas team, but notes nonetheless.

Then one night before Christmas we were at the park looking at the holiday lights and I hear Meredith say "uh oh, Jake's here," but she's grinning. He eventually finds his way over to us, and without saying a word to each other, they both start running. Jake chasing (but never catching) Meredith, Meredith screaming and giggling. Honestly, they NEVER SAID A WORD. At this point I kind of guessed at a crush.

Last month there was a school outing at Wonderscope museum on a Friday night. We get out of the car and Meredith turns to me and whispers "there's Jake." I see Jake turn to his mom and say something (which I come to find out later is "there's Meredith!") Again, not a word is spoken. Jake's mom tells me later in the evening how as they were getting ready Jake says to her that he has to look nice because Meredith will be at Wonderscope too. But there's absolutely NO interaction between the two of them.

But we're making progress. Friday last week was rainy, and rather than play outside the kids in both classes watched a movie. Meredith tells me, sort of in an offhand way, that she sat by Jake they had their arms around each other "like this" as she puts an arm across my shoulders. And this morning, Jake's mom tells me how the minute he got into the car after school on Friday he says very excitedly that he "watched a movie AND got to sit by Meredith!" (Though he omits the "arms around each other" part.) And apparently he wants her phone number and address so he can invite her over to play this summer and "for sure" invite her to his birthday party. So they can ignore each other some more.

The only sad part of this story is that Jake and Meredith will go to different schools in the fall. Though the potential is there for their paths to cross in the future when they hit middle school. Time will tell if Jake and Meredith will STILL be sitting in that tree. And whether or not they actually SPEAK to each other...