Gamma had a visitor Saturday morning, a little boy she knows from nursery school. We will call him A. He is a husky little blond guy into normal boy things such as swords and suspending himself by the armpits between two chairs (his arms hooked over the chair arms) and simultaneously making running motions with his legs, which apparently gives him a little stimulation. I think this because his parents find it embarassing when he does it in front of company, not because I’ve tried it yet.
We were in the back yard and the little perv climbed the fence to peek through the slats at the neighbor lady hanging laundry behind her house. “A., dude, get off that fence, it’s more ornamental than anything, you’ll knock it down,” I said to him in English. He seemed a little surprised. “I don’t speak English,” he said, in German.
I knew that. I was just saying something while I decided what to really say to him, because I figured I shouldn’t say the first thing that had occurred to me, which was, “dude, get into the house, the view’s much better from our library window.”
Later, he, Gamma and I waited in the car at the train station to pick up Beta on her way home from school. He was checking out all the girls. “Here come the girls,” he said. “There’s four right now. None of them’s Beta, though,” he said.
“Don’t you just love the warm weather, when they put on their summer dresses,” I felt like saying.
“There’s some more,” he said.
It reminded me of when I was five, and our first trip to Hawaii, which I looked forward to because of, dude, stewardesses and bikinis.
ah, the girls in their summer dresses, indeed.
i’m frequently glad to have “english as a secret language” here, because the boy will insist on making rather loud observations such as “mom, i can totally see that girl’s underpants right through her dress!” and while i’m not convinced that she doesn’t sort of know about that, i don’t know if she wants to know that it’s being witnessed with such delight by a 7 year old.
omg.. five year old boys think about stewardesses in bikinis? (thinking madly through all the things that I thought were perfetly harmless because he had no sexual context yet)
ack.
I remember an incident in Kindergarten (I was in kindergarten MYSELF at the time befor anyone calls the cops) and a girl I liked wore here ballerina outfit to school, complete with the stiff round tutu dress. I recall when she leaned over the table across from me and I could see her bottom while she was wearing white tights. It gave me a funny feeling and I’ve liked white stockings ever since.
What’s weird is that I’m sure I didn’t really understand how sex worked until the 4th grade so I guess it was just some foreshadowing of hormones in the kindergarten episode.
But I think if women realized just how early and silly mens sexual proclivities were formed they would have an even lower opinion of us then they do (if possible).
gagh–i had no idea!
When I was about five, my pediatrician had this really old nurse, at least 45, who wore white stockings, so they’ve always been a bit of a turnoff for me ever since. OTOH, I have fond memories from kindergarten of tieing my female classmates to trees and play equipment with the jumpropes…
five?
i had no idea. none.
Let me explain that I did not know why I was looking forward to stewardesses, merely that there was something special and glamorous about them. This may have come from some part of the general attitude of grown men from that era that I picked up on, from watching sit-coms or wherever else I was getting my male acculturation from.
this gives new dimension to the time Robbie G. tried to kiss me on the playground. we were both 5 at the time. i remember thinking, “yay! i have a boyfriend! but why did he try to kiss me? that’s just sick.” (and what was up with that thing that was UP? boggling for the five year old mind…)