A friend who is a girl.
In our family prayer this morning, Isaac prayed that he would get to sit next to Emma at school. 
Last year I asked him who his friends were at school and he said the kids he played with the most were Emma and Storm. This year Storm is in another class, but Emma is in his class. He comes home from school everyday talking about Emma. He’ll say things like “today, we got pumpkins and I looked at them in the hall and mine was two pumpkins away from Emma’s. Is that good?†When I ask him about his day, he tells me about times he got to sit next to or play with Emma. As we drove away from school yesterday he said “Mom, Emma looked at our van!â€
I am also starting to see an increase of Emma related doodles on his paper. Here are some examples:
So this morning we had a talk that went something like this: “Isaac, do you know that when you’re 6 you should have friends that are girls, but not girlfriends?†Then I tried to describe the difference without giving him any ideas (I didn’t mention things like hand holding and kissing). As cute as a first girlfriend might seem at his age, I think it’s dangerous for kids to pair off too young. I’d be happy if he didn’t have any girlfriends until after high school. He can go on group dates when he’s sixteen.