Smitten for mittens

Thanks to my friend Kellee for pointing out that the mittens Jack gave at the birthday party are all the rage in Vancouver and beyond (even Joe Biden and Cindy Crawford have them!). Check out this story on Yahoo.com.

Our own kids were the proud recipients of the same gloves for Christmas from our friend (and John's colleague) Hillary. He is the first one who told us how cool they really were (you can count on Hillary to know what's cool!). Thanks again, Hillary!

And... Jack just gave me permission to tell his funny birthday party story! (His response: :"OKAY -- as long as no one writes me back about it"). So... here it is.

First, some necessary backstory. For the first 7.5 years of his life, people have liked Jack. He was a happy baby who was willing to let anyone hold him, a cheerful toddler with sparkly eyes, a chatty preschooler who had a good sense of humor, and now a nice kid whom most people -- boys and girls -- seem to like.

Girls, especially, seem to like Jack. One day in kindergarten, he came home and in giving an account of his day, mentioned all of the girls at his snack table were fighting over who was going to marry him. I asked who HE might want to marry. He said he was going to move to Alaska with one of his best friend's, Thomas, and raise sled dogs. There have been countless other instances of little girls longing for Jack -- most of which involve Jack being clueless about it all. Such is his life.

So...the party. As you know, about 10 days ago Jack had been invited to the birthday party of a classmate. A little girl. A très belle, très French little girl.

We wanted all of the details when he got home, and he did as good of a job as a 7-year-old can at telling us what they did, what they ate, and what presents were opened.

Later that night, though, just before he fell asleep, Jack told me one more thing that happened at the party. The birthday girl, he said, told him something. She said that she does NOT have des copains (friends who are boys). No, she told him, she only has des copines (friends who are girls) and des amoureux (lovers).

(Can you imagine? Eight-years-old and such a sense of her womanly self! LOL!)

I asked him if he knew what an amoureaux was. He nodded shyly and said "Someone who is loved?"

I said that the birthday girl must think he is a very nice friend, indeed. And then I said I *had* to tell his daddy. He said "OK, but you can't put it on the blog! Or Facebook, either!"

So I didn't... until today, with his permission -- and his pleasure that his friend now possesses the hottest Olympic gear available.

Thanks, beloved Jack!