A better title might be “Lily’s Mommy’s First Heartbreak”  because I’m not sure yet how Lily’s handling it, but her boyfriend, the love of her life, moved away yesterday.  Lily’s Boyfriend #1 (name edited) has been oft-mentioned in the blog.  As in Lily repeating, “Mommy, I like the kids in my class . . . but I LOVE Boyfriend #1.”  She held his hand during group play, drove the toy cars in the playground with him, and he was glued to her side during sandbox play.  During water play they liked to squirt each other and only each other.  They were quite the duo, and went on double dates near the swings with their friends.  The foursome is now the threesome, and Lily is odd-girl out, since Boyfriend #1 and his family moved.  Good reason to go, but man, when I found it was his last day, I literally broke down in the parking lot like some ridiculous mommy who lives vicariously through her children.  Lily’s too young to grasp the loss of a friend, but I’m not, and I had little fantasies of the two of them wandering off to kindergarten together hand in hand, and #1 protecting her from the bigger kids on the playground. I try to act like I’m tough, but I’m really not, and I think I loved #1 almost as much as Lily. 

I think because we moved around when I was a child, I never had the experience of starting school with someone and graduating high school with that same set of friends, and I’m nostalgic about that.  Reconnecting with Allison was a big deal because she’s literally the only person I know from my elementary school that I am still in touch with.  We both went to a freaky private school for either really smart or really stupid kids.  They didn’t take average kids - just the weird ones like us.  And we both survived entering a public school and all the pressures that went with it - even though at moments it felt like just barely.  And I want Lily to feel those connections with her past, or have those long-standing relationships with people you know inside and out. Yes, I know, she’s only 3 1/2.  And I totally know that I am projecting, and that even though she will constantly ask me about #1 and where he is, she is still only 3 1/2 and will eventually forget she ever knew, or loved, a little boy in Yellow Room. 

After I got a grip on myself and wrote it off to PMS, I asked Ms. Brown to send me some pictures of #1 and Lily together on their last day.  I don’t have the ones she took in the playground, but I do have these two separate images. I must say, Lily has good taste in men already.  (photos removed to protect the innocent)