He dates!

Our blog has been around for almost 5 years now, which is awesomely cool IMHO.  There are very few things that I was doing five years ago that I'm still doing now.  For example: when we first started this blog I was a single mom, struggling to kick-start a writing career, and going on string of horrifically bad dates.  I blogged about a lot of those dates, which, looking back on it, was pretty humorous.  Mortifying at the time, humorous five years later.  Now, I'm with a great guy (okay, not ALL of the dates I blogged about where horrific... it only took one prince in a sea of frogs), and we have our second baby together on the way.  Life in my household is a far cry from what it was when I started blogging here.

But guess what?  I'm blogging about dating today again.  No, not me going on a date.  My son.  My twelve year old baby is - gulp - dating!!  I'm having severe mixed emotions about this.  He's a pretty mature kid, I trust his judgment, and I'm glad to see him feeling confident enough in himself at such an awkward age.  He's always been my little Casanova, and he's never gone through a "girls are yucky" phase.  And even in kindergarten he had a girlfriend.  But this is so much different.  There are actual dates involved, as in, he and a girl alone.  Together.  Hormones racing through both of their pre-teen bodies.  Gah!  My hair is turning white just thinking about it.

It started with a girl that he met on Facebook.  And, while I would have loved to warn him of all the evils of dating someone from the internet... I met my guy online, too.   Doh!  I knew that would come back to bite me in the butt at some point.

However, that romance was quick.  He told me that it was just too hard dating someone long distance.  (They did live a whole 5 miles apart.)  But, now he's into a girl from his own school.  Who lives just a mile away.  Close enough that they can ride their bikes to each others' houses after school and "hang out" for hours.  Know what?  I think I kinda liked the long distance online girl better.  She feels... safer.

I'm now frantically trying to figure out what sort of rules/talks we need to have.  It's one of those moments where I know Good Mom would do something.  She'd have a great talk prepared.  She'd know just how much to say about safe sex to prevent her 12 year old from entering into a world he's clearly much too young for, without giving him any ideas that might push him into that world faster than he should go there.  She'd know how to be encouraging about his young love, but discouraging about physically following through with it for many, many more years.   Man, I wish I had Good Mom's number.  Because I'm clueless how to handle this. 

Any advice for surviving this phase? 

~Trigger Happy halliday