Perching Hawk

So one day after the Theo tromped out the door for school, I sat down at the computer to do a little emailing.  Only Theo had not logged out of his account.  As I went to switch users, a long string of unopened emails from one sender caught my eye.  Some girl had been madly emailing my son.  Lots of them.   Mostly unopened.  Subject lines contained many many punctuation marks.  I admit I opened one.  There was a brief exchange in this particular convo about telling someone that Theo was her boyfriend.  But if he was her boyfriend why did he never email?  Why????!?!?!?!  I was curious as to Theo's answer, which handily I found in the next email:  "My mom watches the computer like a hawk!".  What?  I do?  I really don't think I do, although admittedly I was reading that very email, perhaps the only email I had ever read of Theo's, ironically.  Or was it just a bummer?  For Theo.

Overall, I thought the whole conversation rather comical and sent it off to Jon for his opinion.  As I hit send I realized I was still in Theo's account and had just not only forwarded the email to Jon, but had written something like, "Funny stuff- what do you think??"  and then even went on to say that Theo appeared to like the girl for her interest in MineCraft and was that better or worse than liking someone just for their looks?

So I started sweating a little.  In my nervous state I didn't think about just deleting that particular email.  No.  I decided the best course of action was to send another one, this time back to the sender, who was not me, but actually Theo.  All it said was "Beware.  The hawk is perching."

Several hours later Theo slunk through our door, clearly having had a chance to check his email while at school (it was his school account after all).  He had trouble meeting my eyes.  But after I spread my wings and made an ominous hawk call we shared a laugh. We went out to the deck to have a private chat about girlfriends and such.  I asked him if he had one.  He said, "Mom.  Why are you making this so hard???" We were talking, not emailing, but those extra punctuation marks were there. I felt them.  I swear I was not trying to make anything hard.  And suggested that if he was having trouble admitting that he 'had a girlfriend' perhaps he was not ready for a girlfriend.  He agreed.  After explaining that having a girlfriend meant that they emailed each other.  And that perhaps there was a plot for the girl to kiss him on the playground at lunch, a plot he had uncovered and was strenuously avoiding.  And I explained that generally I don't perch very actively, but that if my child did appear to be falling too quickly out of my nest, he would feel the claws around that tender little neck.  Oh yes he would.  I think he was relieved.  Until the hawk joke got a little old. In his mind.  Still fresh for me.