Backpack? Check. Glue Sticks? Check. Harem? Check.

Last night, we attended Suttie’s pre-k open house. And I have to take a moment to plug Hazel Green Methodist’s Child Enrichment Center. They’re the bomb, with super fun and interactive teachers and a strong educational and spiritual focus. They’re so good that there’s really no need for me to engage his mind in any way at home. And what a freeing experience it is to just let him stick stuff up his nose all day. (Obviously, I’m kidding about the last part. Right now, I’ve got him working on derivatives while listening to an audio edition of Roots.)

But, in addition to discovering the wonder that awaits my son this coming school year, I was also reminded that my chubby-cheeked four year old who occasionally still says “donimoes” instead of “dominoes” has…….girlfriends.  Yes, plural. And not the, “she’s a girl and she’s my friend” kind. It seems pretty clear that Suttie likens his pack of sister wives to the boyfriend/girlfriend relationships he’s seen on TV (e.g., Sonic the Hedgehog and Amy, Jack Skellington and Sally the Ragdoll, Spiderman and Mary Jane).

Now, I’ve always known that Suttie’s a smooth operator. Whenever he senses that trouble’s brewing because he roundhouse kicked a full cup of juice or stole all of his sister’s fruit snacks (why are most of our incidents food-related?), he goes immediately doe-eyed and quietly whispers, “Mommy, I’ll never stop loving you.” The first few times, I’ll admit, I melted. But I’ve built up enough defenses by now to say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, get in the corner.” So I can see how these poor, formerly Daddy-adoring princesses might fall victim to his web of compliments and kick-ass ninja skills.

When we pulled into the school’s parking lot yesterday, Suttie saw an adorable little girl who was in his class last year. And when I say, adorable, I mean beyond precious with a cute blonde bob and a face that exudes playful sweetness. I’ve got to give it to him; the kid’s got taste. And as he pointed to her and said her name, he followed that with “she’s my girlfriend.” And then I remembered that she was, in fact, his girlfriend because she’d told him that she was at school last year. And if there’s one thing that O’Neal men know, it’s to take a date however you can get one.

So we went into the sanctuary for the introductory meeting, and I saw Suttie wave to his girlfriend and she waved back. And then he waved to another girl, and she waved back and then another until I became too scared to look back at blonde bob for fear that she was sharpening the prayer request pencils into preschool-sized shanks.

After the meeting, we went to his new classroom (one that he doesn’t share with his girlfriend, which may spell relationship disaster) and met his awesome teacher (who, by the way, gave them bags of magic confetti to put near their beds the night before school starts to calm their nerves. Her plan beats mine which was to tell him that I’d be less worried about school starting and more worried about the red-eyed monster I saw crawl under his bed). Then we moved to the fellowship hall to fill out some paperwork and sign our kids away (I wish!).

And while I was standing in line to make my illegible John Hancock and Suttie and his dad were camped along a wall waiting for me, I heard a little voice shout “Sutton!” to which I turned around and saw blonde bob with one hand on her hip looking dead at my son from across the room. And I thought, “Awww, hell. She saw him schmoozing in the church. Well, I guess there’s still time to have another son. We could name him Jack and teach him to play the violin by three.”

But Suttie didn’t hear her, so leaning forward a little more, she again shouted, “Sutton!” This time he saw her and a giant smile wove its way across his face. So she went prancing over to him (no shank in hand, I checked) and they started….flirting. Yes, flirting. She was dancing around, eating some Lucky Charms out of a Ziploc bag, and batting her hand at him in a playful way while he was standing as tall as he could and talking about that random stuff that fills his mind the second he sees someone he knows. It was probably about The Nightmare Before Christmas but could just as easily have been about Angry Birds or my mom’s new dog.

After I was done, I walked over to join them, and that’s when I heard it. Another little girl, this one with short curly hair and good fashion sense (Hello Kitty is classic and will never go out of style no matter what your age, so says my jogging pants with Charmmy Kitty on the butt) pointed to Suttie and said, “That’s my boyfriend.” Oh, good grief! 

And as his mom, I wanted to jump on a table and say, “I’m sorry, but none of you will ever be good enough for him. You won’t fold his socks right and you don’t know how to make his chocolate milk with the perfect milk to chocolate ratio. You don’t know all of the words to “This is Halloween,” and no one is better at pretending to be Shredder than me!” But I choked it back because, when I wrote down my dreams and wishes for him in his baby book, one of those things was to find someone to love and make happy, not to become the next Norman Bates.

So as we prepare to start the next school year, I’m faced with the reality that my little boy is growing up in more ways than one, that “the talk” will be here before we know it, and not just that talk but others…about how to treat women and how to honor a commitment, about the right way to end things and the wrong way to start things, and, perhaps most importantly, about the fact that polygamy is still very much illegal.