"He already tried to take it to a number three," or Lessons in Elementary Dating

Don't let the title fool you, I'm not taking a dating 101 class. I'm talking about dating at the elementary school level. Brynn has never not been into boys. To be fair, she might get that from me. Regardless, there's never been a moment in her life where boys were repulsive or had cooties.

Recently Brynn decided to finally accept the overtures of a certain boy who has been pursuing her for two years now. That's right folks, at 10 years old. He'll have long conversations on the phone with her. He's taken her to the movies (with his family of course). He even invited her to a fireworks extravaganza in his backyard (put on by Rozzis!). Brynn's been stubborn but he's been patient. She finally relented a couple weeks ago though.

Brynn prefers a several page manifesto when confessing crushes.

So tonight, when she announced to me that she thinks she's going to break up with this boy, my heart went out to him a little bit. He's tried SO hard. But I know it's Brynn's decision. I wanted to encourage her to be fair to him though and not hurt his feelings. I warned her to be careful not to lose a friend.

Her retort caught me off guard. By way of defending her decision she told me, "He's already tried to take it to number three." For a moment I got a lump in my throat and a wave of panic swept over me. What in the world was "number three"? I remembered my "bases" from late middle and early high school, but surely no. Not in elementary school. Thankfully when I asked, Brynn explained (in her most you're-so-out-of-touch tone) that three is kissing on the lips. And she (supposedly) told him no.

The whole episode has left me wondering...what's a one and a two? Hand-holding? Declaring yourselves boyfriend and girlfriend? Exchanging friendship bracelets? Also, how high does this numbering system go? By the end of high school my friends and I had imagined the baseball metaphor to its breaking point (not that we made use of all the imagined designations mind you). Is the elementary school system just a ladder with some undefined endpoint and uncertain number of levels? Or is there only, say, a four and a five (whatever those might be)? I'll have to find out more tomorrow, perhaps over an afternoon hot chocolate. In the meantime I'm going to leave Brynn to handle her love life as she sees fit...with a little motherly advice sprinkled here and there as we go.