I spent the weekend in California for my wife's cousin's wedding. The ceremony was lovely, the bride was beautiful, and it was a lot of fun to hang out with my wife's family. I really lucked out when it comes to in-laws: they're all super fun and have welcomed me with open arms. But this isn't about any of that. This is about when my wife and I went to visit her friend Kelly (I'm changing names to protect anyone who might not want to be named) the day before the wedding.

Kelly has been one of Kat's (I've mentioned her name on here already, so she's screwed) best friends since they were little kids. They grew up next door to each other and spent nearly every weekend staying the night at one another's houses. Kelly made the trip to Hawaii, pregnant as all get out, to be Kat's bridesmaid in our wedding. They're super close, but life pulled us to Seattle and her to San Jose, they don't get to hang out as much as they'd like. Kelly's got two kids from her previous marriage with a third on the way courtesy of her sweetheart of a fiance, Tommy. They just moved into a new place, her mom's living with them to help with the kids, and things are a little stressful around the house. So as soon as Kelly's son Mike saw me, he was hellbent on playing with me...

I recently learned I'm good with kids. We had a party and I wound up playing with one of my co-worker's three-year-old son and gave my wife, to quote her own words, "a pang in the uterus." Mike started out a little bashful, but in 15 minutes he was hopping on my lap and play wrestling and wanting to show me his toys. Kelly and Kat had plenty to catch up on, Tommy was trying to be polite but obviously had a ton of unpacking and household managing stuff to do, so I figured I'd hang with the kids.

Mike towed me into his room, which he shares with his little sister Amelia, a three-year-old blonde tornado of energy. He showed me his toys, his cars, his bed, his books, and I oohed and aahed enthusiastically at all of them. Then he showed me his DVDs of various superhero cartoons. I mentioned that I love superheroes too, and his eyes lit up. "Wanna watch a movie?" I had nothing better to do, so why not watch some cartoon Super Friends? Sure. "You can sit on my bed," he motioned for me to sit down. "I have to take my pants off to get into bed," he said as he ripped his little sweatpants down, exposing Flash-themed underpants.

Alarm bells rang in my head. I've been in this house all of a half hour and now Kelly or Tommy is going to walk in here and find me sitting on the bed with their underwear-clad five-year-old. It's sad that this is where we're at as a society. That my first reaction was one of panic at the prospect of being labelled a sex offender and not one of joy at the hilarious innocence of childhood. But maybe that's a different blog post. It turns out that Mike likes to climb into his grandma's bed and snuggle before bed, and since he's a typical kid he's usually filthy at the end of the day so she makes him take off his clothes so he won't get her sheets all covered in dirt and sand.

With that out of the way, a realization suddenly dawned on me. The events of the day replayed in my head: he'd made me a lemonade, we'd spent the afternoon talking, he'd invited me to his room and showed me around, he asked if I wanted to watch a movie, he pulled a lame line about having to take his pants off for some reason.

I suddenly realized how every girl I dated in college must've felt.

That five year old has already mastered my go-to seduction move. He's going to be a heartbreaker. And I probably need to update my repertoire of moves.