Love and marriage preschool style

So the little chicky who proposed to my son and is probably still waiting for his answer via phone call, latched onto me today. Ok, not latched. As a nursing mom, "latch" means something that I am not trying to convey here. I got a HUGE hug from her.

I hugged her back as icily as I could - in typical mother-in-law-in-practice fashion (though my MIL doesn't hug with ice, she is a good hugger). I wanted to whisper in little chicky's ear not to be expecting an answer from Leif anytime soon, he can't read and there is no democracy in our house, it is a dictatorship and I control what he reads. But I didn't. I just thanked her for the hug, but I see through her tactics...

Love and marriage is in the air at preschool though. One of the other moms who I am friends with told me her son was trying to decide which of two girls he was going to marry at recess tomorrow since she had told him he could not marry his sister.

And then the other day on the way home from school Leif blurted out that he was going to marry me. I was flattered, but told him I didn't think Daddy would like that too much since he is already married to me. He proposed a three-way marriage, but I reinforced the one man, one woman thing. (I accept homosexuality and I am pro gay marriage - but my three year old doesn't need to start thinking about that anytime in the near future.)

I told Leif that he was going to need to pick out someone else to marry, and he did. Our friend's daughter and not terribly surprising.

I want to think of Leif as being immune to the advances of girls everywhere - but I know him too well. Everyone gets a hug in our house, and kisses get doled out too and not just for the girls either.

He and one of his male friends always kiss as they depart from a playdate. Not surprising since on New Years Eve at their house I was kissed hello and goodbye by nearly everyone there and very few of them I had met previously. (A little weird... but whatever.) But at their house, Leif gloms onto this practice. Kisses all around!

Then there are the two girls we are closest friends with, it is hard to pull Leif off them... I have a Christmas eve picture I could post of a "Leif sandwich" with the two of them - it is apparent he was enjoying a little slice of heaven there... There are usually threats of dad's needing to become involved - though Leif doesn't pay them much heed. N has proved to be her own woman though as she puts up with his advances for about three seconds and then shoves him off saying, "no kissies Leif". C, on the other hand, eats it up and we have questions of "when do we force them to stop this" with regards to the present as well as future timeline with respect to age.

So while I want to think that my son is an innocent bystander not provoking any of this attention... I fear that he is an active participant in garnering this attention.