Last week I learned that all of the girls in first grade at my children’s school wanted to marry Steven. Why Steven, I’m not really sure. Of course he is a cute little kid, happens to be the tallest in the class with a nice smile and floppy brown hair. But I don’t think the first grade girls really care about any of that.

This obsession with Steven has continued over the summer from Kindergarten. The good news is that this shows that my daughter’s memory is working, and that it’s just her listening skills that are impaired. I was beginning to worry given that she doesn’t always remember to do what I ask from one minute to the next.

As for Steven, the first grade girls have taken their obsession one step further since one girl has to be his “back up wife.” When this little girl’s mother heard this news, she thought she’d have to have a talk with her daughter about self-esteem and not settling for such a thing. What we forget is that our first grade children are only six or seven years old and they can just as easily say that they want to marry a stuffed animal or piece of chocolate cake, as another person. Marrying someone or something to a first grader is just a way of expressing “I really like you/it a lot!”

As for my first grade daughter when I asked her if she wanted to marry Steven, she replied “I’m going to wait until college to see my options.”