"Jane! Stop This Crazy Thing!"

There have been a lot of rules in our household about dating. The right ages, when it will be allowed, and how many people have to be there; those sort of rules. (Although, strangely, we haven't touched on a curfew yet. I suppose that could be because there is always a parent doing the driving, and that parent more often than not is me. Huh.) We have always been pretty firm on these rules.

1. No dating AT ALL until you're at least 14.
2. ONLY group dating at first.
3. NO "alone" (meaning just he and the girl) until 16.

All of that careful planning and firm standing my ground has worked very well. And while that could be simply because we've never been really tested, I prefer to think it was because I was just that strong. But all of that was shot to heck and back yesterday.

Jock, my baby who is constantly showing me that he's not my baby anymore, went on his first real date. He took The Girlfriend to the movies.

Now, there are several things about that event that make it mostly ok. I drove the kids TO the theater, and her parents picked them up. Very little money came out of anyone's pocket (remember, this kid doesn't have a job, yet) as both of them conveniently had movie passes. And neither of them is old enough to have driven themselves. So as far as first dates go, this one could have been so very much more threatening to me and my fragile psyche.

Besides, when he got home and started telling me about how many of their friends ended up actually being in the same theater watching the same movie with them, I decided I could almost convince myself that it had really been a group date, after all.