The Cutest Thing I've Ever Seen

...and it wasn't even my kid who did it.

Baby girl has a boyfriend. She loves her daycare class, loves her teachers, but one boy in particular she became fast friends with, a little boy named Aiden. The teachers would tell me that Aiden and baby girl would chase each other around the classroom all day, roll balls back and forth between them, share toys, etc. On a day he was having a particularly hard time, crying inconsolably, she went over and laid her head on his lap until he stopped crying. They would even give each other kisses. When I came to pick her up every day, he would follow us around the room while I gathered her things; then he would follow us to the door and stare at her as she left, waving bye-bye with both hands.

Aiden is an "older man." He's two months older than baby girl, and about a month ago, he moved up into the toddler room. I figured their friendship would fade . . . at this age, memories don't last, right? I don't know how often they see each other during the day anymore, but I figured it couldn't be much if they were in separate rooms.

Yesterday when I went to pick baby girl up, as we exited her room and walked by the toddler room, I noticed several of her old classmates, including Aiden, playing busily in the toddler room. He was in the back corner, working on figuring out how to pick up an unwieldy elephant, stand up, and walk with it. Without fail it wobbled and fell before he got even a step or two of progress, but he was determined to figure it out. The teachers throughout the school know of Ali and Aiden's affection for each other, so the toddler teacher started calling Aiden's name to get his attention. He was intently focused on his uncooperative elephant, so it took several attempts to finally get his attention.

"Aiden!" the teacher said again and again. "Aiden! Look up! Aiden!"

He finally took a pause from his mission to throw a curious, "What?!?!" look at his teacher.

"Aiden, look! Ali's at the door!"

He didn't turn to face the door like, "I understand the word door, I'll look that way to see what teacher is talking about," he turned to face the door like "OH MY GOD SHE SAID 'ALI'!!!" It was immediate and disbelieving and hopeful all at once.

Baby girl and I stood there at the window, waving and grinning. His eyes locked into hers, and he dropped his elephant and threw his arms out, feet already churning toward us. The elephant, ever the bane of his afternoon, tripped him up, and he fell. But even as he stumbled, even as he dropped his hands to catch himself, he never once took his eyes off my girl. He knocked the elephant to the side, got back on his feet, threw his hands out toward us again, and toddled as fast as his little feet would carry him across the room. The look on his face was one I've seen in romance movies: desperation, a wild desire to know if the face he was seeing was real or just a figment of his memories.

He stopped at the door, he on one side, me and my sweet girl on the other. He didn't cry out. He didn't wave. He just stood there, hands on the door, eyes locked onto baby girl. She, ever the charmer, smiled and said, "hi!" and beat the glass with her tiny little hands.

I started to feel bad. There I was, standing there on the other side of an impassible obstacle, taunting him with something he so clearly wanted but couldn't have. I told baby girl to say "bye." She didn't. She wouldn't. She just looked at him and smiled. And he, seeming to realize that we weren't coming in, that we were about to leave, took a couple of steps back away from the door. There were no tears. No cries of frustration. Just slow steps backward, eyes never leaving each other, her face lit with a sweet smile of affection, his face blank, all his effort pouring into not letting her out of his sight.

And then we left.

This is Aiden's last week at our school. His family is moving. I don't know if he and baby girl will ever see each other again, and part of me laments that. Aside from silly notions of young love, a part of me, a very deep, human part of me, rejoices at their affection for each other, at the friendship that has so clearly bonded these two. It will be a loss for both of them to be permanently split apart.

I realized on the way home that he would only be the first of many boys, of many men, to lose their hearts to my daughter, to feel like they can't get enough of drinking in her face, her eyes, her smile, to feel a desperate need to be near her. The power that she will have one day over another human being, and the powerlessness that she'll feel, consumed by her own feelings in return, is the quintessential human experience. To love and be loved, that is really what it's all about.

How amazing to see that played out so early, so innocently, so sweetly, and so honestly.