"eileen"

Today we went to Troy, NC--home to the Thompson family for generations. I think our family history can be traced back to this region since before the Revolutionary War. I'm not sure, but put it this way--my roots run deep there. We had a wonderful time seeing my aunts and their children and grandchildren. It is always a peaceful, happy place full of the sweetest childhood memories. But that is a blog for a different day.

Of all the fun that we had today, the thing that I most want to write about tonight is a conversation Anderson and I had on the way home. We were about 45 minutes outside of Raleigh when we stopped to pick up a quick meal, and since Bennett woke up at that point, I sat in the back seat to feed him a little chicken and watch Shrek 2 with Anderson. I'm sitting there, thinking about how blessed I am to have been given these two wonderfully delightful sons. I then tell Anderson that I think he is so handsome, and I ask him, "So which girls like you at school?" He replies, "Mom, I've told you this a bunch of times." (I probably ask him every so often because I want to monitor these kinds of situations. Kids are wanting to grow up way too fast, particularly when it comes to their interest in the opposite sex.) And I said, "I know, but I wanted to see if anything has changed." So then, to keep the conversation going because I could tell he was very uninterested and wanted me to be quiet so he could watch the movie, I asked, "How do you know they like you?" And he said, "Remember, Mom?" Then he leaned his upper body slightly into mine to demonstrate something that he had told me about a few weeks ago but that I had forgotten. This caused both of us a great deal of laughter.

I'll digress a moment to give you a little background information so you understand why this is funny. Anderson goes to a Christian school, so they have hymnals in their classroom to sing from every morning. (It's actually quite a sweet experience to hear these children singing to the Lord. It brings tears to my eyes every time.) There are only half as many hymnals as there are children, so each boy holds the hymnal for the girl that sits beside him. Anderson has to hold the hymnal for a very sweet girl that sits next to him, but he isn't all that thrilled about it for several reasons. One, he says she has morning breath. I know that may sound a bit mean, but kids can be brutally honest, and my child happens to have a freakishly strong sense of smell. When I was in his classroom a few weeks ago, they were singing their hymn and he kept looking at me with his hands holding the book in front of her and his head turned towards me in the absolute opposite direction, making faces at me as if he was saying, "See, I told you she had bad breath." I gave him that "stop it" look because I was afraid someone else would notice. On that day, I did notice that the little girl likes to stand a little closer than necessary to see the hymnal that Anderson is basically holding directly in front of her, but I thought that was actually sweet. I felt there was a definite innocence to what she was doing, though, if that makes sense. But Anderson has been complaining to me that she is now leaning into him, semi-resting her head on him while they sing a hymn.

So tonight, when Anderson did the "leaning" demonstration, he then told me this: "Mom, and now she does the back-touching thing, too." "WHAT?" I exclaimed. He noticed my reaction was a little threatening, so he said, "Nevermind." Softening my voice I asked, "Um, no, Anderson, what are you talking about when you say 'the back-touching thing'?" He smiled, and he said, "You know", and he touched my lower back lightly, demonstrating how her hand is gently going behind him when they sing. I said, "She's putting her arm around you?" And he says, "Yes, sort of. I keep feeling something lightly touching my back when we sing." At this point you are probably wondering why the teacher has not interrupted this little girl's "advances", but the teacher is singing and reading the hymnal, too, so I can see why there has been no intervention.

I have to be honest. Anderson and I got the greatest giggle out of him telling me this, even though a part of me didn't want him to think it was funny. He knows that the girl really shouldn't be doing it, and he does tell me he tries to gently scoot away from her. He even asked me, "Mom. I don't like her at all, but what if she asks me if I think she is pretty?" And I said, "You just say that you are really glad she is your friend and that you do not look at her that way."

Now, to the point of the title of this blog...this conversation reminded me of when I started dating. I was dating a boy who was a basketball player and he was quite tall. And when he would sit on the sofa next to me, he had a tendency to lean the upper part of his body towards me. My dad quickly noticed this, and being the kind of dad who LOVED to keep young boys in check and to embarass me whenever possible, he would walk in the room and say to the boy, "Well, hey Eileen!!" (Get it? "I Lean".) The poor boy took awhile to catch on, but I of course caught on right away, so I'd give my dad that "please stop it" look. He ignored me. For years, this particular boy was called "Eileen" by my dad.

So last night, I instantly remembered this story, and I said to Anderson, "Maybe if she doesn't stop leaning on you, you should just start calling her Eileen." He looked at me for a second, then his confusion broke out in laughter. We giggled together, and the joy that filled my heart was beyond description. What a great boy he is, I thought, knowing he would never call her Eileen because he really is kind.

And for the remainder of our trip, as we snuggled close to watch the rest of the movie, I was Eileen.