Flirting Already

When we get big rain storms, the park across the street floods. A lot of the neighborhood kids come in swimsuits and splash around in the water and the mud. We have been having a lot of big thunderstorms, so the park has been very flooded. In fact, I have never seen it so badly flooded. I took all of the kids to swim there the last two afternoons. Both times there have been a lot of other kids there. Today, I did not have any other parents to talk to, so I just watched my children. To my big surprise, Ruth and Kate were flirting very thoroughly with the boys there. Kate would even flip her hair back and prance around them. Ruth started talking to a boy about a crush Kate had on a boy once. Then she started chanting, "Kate and Chance sitting in a tree." But Ruth was doing this in an "I want attention voice." Again to my surprise, the boys seemed to flirt back in a boyish flirt sort of way. One boy kept coming up to them and asking them questions like their grades and ages. I am guessing they gave the correct answers because then he asked them to have crawling races through the water. Kate started crawling and then she got up quickly, ran to the finishing line and called out in a laughing, giddy voice, "I'm the winner! I'm the winner!" Ruth said, "But you cheated." Kate replied, "It was just a joke," and the boy said, "It was funny." Then Ruth went and started talking and building things with another boy. They reminded me of my Ricks College years with all the girls panning for the boys attention. Ruth, I think, behaved more like I did, and Kate more like most of the girls I knew. One good difference was that while I think Ruth and Kate played off each other for the boys attention, they didn't get upset with each other at all. Still, I can't believe they are flirting already!!!! And, I am not looking forward to three years down the road when they start flirting for more than just attention. I guess it all starts now.