Blame the Stupid Shirt

James has quite the following of girl friends at school. It all started the very first day. Don't know if it's his boyish charm, his cavalier attitude, or his good manners, but the girls like him. My neighbor, who's also one of the kindergarten teachers, told me one day that when it was time to pack up to go home, two of her girls started whining, "We can't go home yet. We haven't gotten to play with James yet!" They call themselves his girlfriends. He does not! Lately he has been escorted to me each afternoon by a girl in his class, Hailey (she's actually shorter than he is - can you believe it?). She's either holding his hand, or has her arm draped around his shoulders. She brings him right to me, and then proceeds to tell me what his behavior was like during class. Last night at dinner, the other kids started asking James about his "girlfriends." He vehemently denied having any girlfriends. I tried to calm him down by explaining (as I glared at the older kids) that it's okay to have friends that are girls. Still he exploded, "I don't have any friends that are girls! Only boys." Then Erik commented. "Well, there sure are a lot of girls that like you. Why do they like you so much? Because you're so cute?" James, very disgusted by this point, responded, "It's not because I'm cute! They just like the stupid shirt!!" Ah- humility.