“Little Skunk was glad to do that.
But then he saw another little skunk.
She was very pretty.
He gave the kiss to her.
And she gave it back.
And he gave it back.
And then Hen came along.
‘Too much kissing,’ she said.”

from “A Kiss For Little Bear”
— written by Else Holmelund Minarik & illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Everyone in my hometown of Portland, Ore., is all a-twitter because of something the kids are calling “Freak Dancing,” aka “Grinding” or “Freaking.” It supposedly leads to blindness.

Anyway. I try to avoid situations where I’m saying anything remotely akin to “In my day, we didn’t have this ‘Freaky-Styley Dancing’ I hear so much talk about. In my day, we slam danced, and sometimes the guys would head-butt each other until they bled, and then they’d spit beer in each other’s mouths and bond, and if you were at a GG Allin show — well, bad things could happen let me tell you, youngster!” (Really, you don’t want to go to that site, it’s ‘isgusting, as my kids say. And I never went to any GG Allin shows because, yuck. I was always too prissy. I did go to some good punk shows though.)

My point is: my darling little adorable honey of a daughter comes home from school today and informs me that there is “TOO MUCH” going on at school. Too much learning, too much to remember, too much drama. To wit: One of the boys tried to give her a flower. And he tried to give several other girls flowers. There has been attempted, and thwarted, kissing. There has been some, uh, groping. There has been much talk of “so-and-so likes you! No, really! He told me!” Etc.

They are in second grade. They are seven and eight years old.

And today, one of the girls drew a picture of herself with the object of her affection. In the picture she’s wearing a bikini. And they’re kissing. Next to the hot tub.

Oh, just wait! It gets better. Next Wacky Girl created what she calls a “Trouble Chart.” She drew the desks, labeled the kids’ names, then did this elaborate flowchart that explains, “Why It Was Not a Good Idea That the Teacher Rearranged the Seating.” (Her poor teacher — I think I’d better take in some restaurant gift certificates and perhaps a bottle of Scotch.)

Key: Heart means “love,” vertical squiggly snake means “hate” (doesn’t it always go that way?), heart with squiggly line through it means “broken-up,” right parenthesis means “friends,” left parenthesis means “like a little,” squiggly horizontal line means “don’t like” and question mark means “don’t know.” (Doesn’t it always go that way, too?)

Then she danced out of the kitchen singing, “We Are the Champions.” I kid you not.

All of this must be stopped before they learn about Freak Dancing. I mean… Help?