“It’s a phase,” my husband Tim grumbles. “Faith won’t even care about One Direction in six months.”
I looked at the laminated Santa List my daughter had just presented to us and chortled. Sixteen items were listed –fifteen of them revolved around the boy band One Direction.
The only thing practical on the list was a curling wand. To my husband it looked like $200 worth of nonsense.
There was the Mrs. Harry Styles t-shirt, a One Direction iPad cover, a One Direction book, a calendar and even a set of One Direction dolls.
I shrugged and agreed that girls her age were indeed irrational and then asked for the credit card to go buy her the nonsense.
I remember all too well…a little girl back in the Christmas of ’79 who loved Shaun Cassidy and swooned and shrieked at his hypnotizing voice and long wavy blond hair. He made me and all my friends gushy inside. Shaun Cassidy bonded us.
How can I begrudge my Faith for her first boy crush when I wore the same girl drama shoes?
Faith is caught in that in-between stage of childhood and teen where the first flutters and stirrings of the heart are easier to project on a celebrity than on a real relationship. Boyfriends will inevitably follow –but for now she is content with posters on the wall to drool over and concert tickets from the One Direction Global tour.
Before I know it my baby Faith will be all grown up and a real Mr. Right will swoop her off her feet.
And so I am crossing off her list one by one with a secret sigh of nostalgia –thinking about the days when a girl could talk for hours with her besty about a boy’s smile and his pretty curls.