The other night after dinner, Caleb waved me into the kitchen. “I have to talk to you in private,” he whispered.

We went into the kitchen and he pulled me down to whisper. “Today at school, E. told me I was hot,” he said, cheeks pink. “She said she liked me like this,” and he waggled his hand back and forth.

“Wow.” That was all I could say. I mean, crushes and all are fine, but in first grade? “Wow. Well, what does that mean?”

That ineffable Calebian shrug. “I don’t know,” he said, and ran back to his dish of ice cream.

So there you go. My son is object of some girl’s affection. Already.

Since this conversation, “hot” has become something of a joke in the house, including Liam’s mockery of my new sneakers, purchased in hopes of getting shredded by Jillian Michaels. Who I hate, by the way, and who I am still convinced is the Svedka fem-bot.

These are my sneakers: are they that bad?

I mean, okay, they’re black and pink, but is that so terrible? Liam says not only are they not hot, they are so awful that I am an embarassment to him when I wear them. To which I said, kid, you’re only ten, and I’m your mother. We’ve got at least another full decade of me embarrassing you.

He seemed unimpressed by my logic and continues to flinch whenever I put on my spiffy sneakers.

Today I took the boys to see the Hopper exhibit at the Whitney. We walked down Madison towards the museum, past all the fancy shops on the Upper East Side.  In one window, we saw these:

“Now these, Liam, are embarrassing,”  I said. “What if I picked you up at school in these?”

Liam giggled. Caleb tapped me on the arm.  “Mommy,” he said. “If you picked me up in these, you’d be one hot mommy!”

Coming from the hottie of first grade, I should consider myself flattered.