Jack's First Love

Tonight we went to a new restaurant here in town that is run by our old librarian Curtis and his son.  Let me just do a little advertising here first.  Amigos was really a great experience; to have that excellent of service, great food and a CLEAN building is almost unheard of in our neck of the woods.  The bathroom was sparkling, which is a selling point in and of itself.  And just as you may have guessed, the evening's entertainment was provided by our children as usual.  Mitch immediately pushed his hand through the curly cues of metal on the back of his chair, getting stuck like a baby raccoon.  I was thinking of flagging down someone to ask for butter when he finally came free.  Jack had chosen the table that was in direct line of sight to the TV which put us in the bar section of the restaurant, but as soon as he saw our server the TV was entirely forgotten.  He never had a chance once she smiled at him with her braces reflecting the neon glow from the BudLight sign in the window.  Her name was Jennifer and she had a certain flair that was unique, cheerful and incredibly endearing.  Jack started chatting her up almost immediately, laying on the charm just as thick as he could.  I think he even batted his eyelashes at her, giving me gray hair at the same time.  Even after we had ordered and she left to serve other customers, he couldn't take his eyes off her, she was like a siren .  Just as I took a bite of my appetizer, she walked past and he sighed saying in an awed-hushed voice "Wow. You're beautiful."  I did the only rational thing you can do when your four year old son hits on a woman in a bar, I choked on my deep fried dill pickle.  Jordan was so floored by the moment that he just watched me struggle for breath with big round eyes.  When he could speak again he asked Jack to repeat what he had just said, which Jack did- saying "she's beautiful" in a tone that also asked "She's an angel with a platter of hot wings, how do you not see it?".  So Jordan asked him if he wanted to tell her and Jack nodded solemnly while still murmuring "beautiful".  Right then she came to our table, almost as if this moment was meant to be for our blossoming young son, and with his heart on his sleeve and love in his eyes he opened his mouth and stuttered out the first thing that came to him- "Thank you very much. I eat chicken...."  Whew!  That was close.  I almost freaked out for a minute there, but since he has no game what-so-ever I felt like I could possibly relax and enjoy the rest of my meal without having to restrain Casanova.  But then it hit me.  My little boy had just had his first love.  HE'S GROWING UP!  That's when I lost it and started to bawl.  I mean sobbing into my pickle, bawling.  It came out of nowhere with no way to control it, I just had to ride out the storm of emotions in the middle of the dinner rush.  Jordan asked me how I think I'm going to handle it the first time Jack brings a girl home for us to meet.  I told him I had planned on hiding in the bathroom that day, or going to the dentist.  He can tell me all about it afterwards when there are no witnesses to my mini-breakdown.  But just thinking about  it makes my throat close up and my bottom lip quiver.  I'm years away from that particularly brutal experience, but I'm sitting here at my computer wiping my eyes and sniffling into a tissue while I think about my sweet boy being old enough to hold a girl's hand.  I'm not going any farther than that, even in my head, because if I imagine him kissing a girl I'll wind up going to bed early to weep into my pillow.