While my four-year-old niece was visiting last weekend, she told me all about her boyfriend, Connor. There's a girl in their preschool named Chloe who is a rival for Connor's affections, but my niece confidently told me, "I'm going to marry him because I love him the most."
It reminded me of my first kindergarten boyfriend, Donny Tate, who brought me a bouquet of flowers from his yard one spring morning. As I walked into the brick schoolhouse holding my foil-and-damp-paper-towel-wrapped bundle of irises and peonies, my teacher said, "Oh, are those for me?"
I replied as any self-absorbed five-year-old would: "No, they're for me."
Probably because of the novelty of kindergarten, I remember more things that happened to me during that single year than I do from the six years of elementary school that followed. A lot of those memories involve my own misbehavior and the inevitable consequences.
For example, one day a friend and I decided not to go back to class after recess ended. I can't remember which one of us had the idea, but it seemed like a good plan to both of us...until we were hustled back into the building by our irate teacher and made to sit on the steps during recess for an entire week thereafter.
By the time I left kindergarten, most of my rule breaking was limited to talking too much. It's something I could still stand to work on.
I don't remember anything more about little Donny except the bouquet of flowers. I assume that he ended up at a different elementary school (much as my niece and Connor will be sadly separated next year when kindergarten begins).
That leads to today's reader question: Who was your very first admirer/crush/boyfriend/girlfriend? Did he or she figure into your later life or disappear in the mists of time?
I had a "talking too much" issue, also. I always got an "N" (not satisfactory) in the area of "works quietly without disturbing others".
Posted by: Cagey | January 18, 2005 at 10:28 AM
No early boyfriends for me...my comment is that I am terribly impressed you could remember little Donny's first AND last name. Nice work, Jane!
Posted by: Pharmgirl | January 18, 2005 at 10:27 PM
I used to chase Jill Blackman around the playground, but I don't think she'd remember ME as her first boyfriend. Never saw her after kindergarten...
Posted by: Kevin | January 19, 2005 at 08:49 AM
Thanks, Pharmgirl. You know, at first I couldn't come up with his name at all, but it was lurking in my cranial archives and I managed to think of it eventually.
Posted by: Jane | January 19, 2005 at 08:55 AM
I had a crush on Richard Buchanan in Primer 1 (1st grade..?) - he ignored me, I sat right behind him on the mat at story time and stared at the back of his head.
Posted by: Fi | January 19, 2005 at 04:36 PM
Jason Cromer and I "dated" from first through third grade. He dumped me for a new girl that moved to the school. I never did like her. Randomly, he actually came to my wedding, though we didn't really stay in touch or anything after high school. One of the grave disadvantages of going to a very small school - you're in the same class with the same people for 13 years, so dating from your class is like dating your brother, ick!
Posted by: mojokittycat | January 20, 2005 at 09:12 AM