Thought for today:

You grow up the day you have your first real laugh -- at yourself.

Our beloved Kidwarmers' editor, Grace Witwer Housholder, shares a marvelous and charming Valentine's Day story today about her son. Ah yes, the "good old days..." Thanks Grace!

Eight years ago, when Paul's older sisters discovered his infatuation with a fellow kindergarten student, they started teasing him.

"Have you kissed her?" one of his sisters asked.
"NO!" he aid.
"Have you held her hand?" another sister asked.
"NO!" Paul said again. But after a pause he added, "But I touched her chair!"

Fast forward to a few days before Valentine's Day, when Paul was in second grade. He got very interested in making Valentines on our home computer. The first one he made was for Clarissa. After he printed it out and folded it, he spent a long time coloring it. The roses were purple, the hearts were green, and he added an orange line drawing of himself lifting weights.

That night he rummaged through a pile of things from my grandmother's house and found an old bottle of French perfume in a faded brocade box. The set was probably 30 years old. But perfume is not like wine -- it does not improve with age. The perfume smelled like bug spray.

"Do you want this?" he asked me. I told him no. Then he went to each of his three sisters and asked them if they wanted the old bottle of perfume. They all wrinkled their noses and said no.

When I found the perfume in his backpack, I put two and two together. "Is that for Clarissa?" I asked. He said yes. The next day I asked him if he had given Clarissa the perfume. He said yes.

"What did you say when you gave it to her?" I asked.
"I said, 'Clarissa, nobody else wants this perfume. Do you want it?'"

Ah, the honesty of youth! And the cruelty. A few days after Valentine's Day, Paul came home from school, ran upstairs to his bedroom, slammed the door shut and burst into loud sobs. It took a long time, but I finally got him to stop saying, "Go away," and learned that some of the boys in his class had teased him about Clarissa. I'm not like those television moms who always know the right thing to say when a child is hurt, sad or confused. As I rubbed his back, I thought and thought about how to comfort him. I finally came up with, "It doesn't matter what other people think..." And then I remembered an article about how to teach children to react to bullies, and added, "If they tease you again, just look them in the eye and say, 'I don't like what you're saying. Please leave me alone.'"

A few days later Paul came to me with two tarnished, tangled necklaces he had gotten from the pile of stuff from my grandmother's house.

"Does anyone want these?" he asked.
"Are they for Clarissa?" I asked.
"One's for Clarissa and one's for Madeline," he said.
"Why do you want to give a necklace to Madeline?" I asked.
"When I gave the perfume to Clarissa, Madeline said she wanted some, and now she wants a necklace."
I gave him permission to give the necklaces to Clarissa and Madeline. And I hoped the boys wouldn't find out about it.

Fast-forward to January 2001.

Paul is 13.
I come in the back door carrying the dinner groceries and Paul (with two classmates behind him) greets me with an expression of panic.

"Mom, don't go in the basement," he says in a loud whisper. "We've got GIRLS down there!"

Oh, for the good old days of green roses.

by: Grace Witwer Housholder

Grace is a Heartwarmer Gem and an award-winning journalist. You see many of her Funny Kid sayings at the end of our Heartwarmers. She is the the author of "The Funny Things Kids Say Will Brighten Any Day" books. You can review this book at the following location:Heart.

This story may not be reproduced in any way, without the author's written permission.