When it comes to friends at school, Alex primarily spends his days with other boys. There was a short period of time when he told us he had a “school girlfriend” but as soon as they were no longer in the same class, he moved on to the rowdy boys: making believe they are superheroes or Power Rangers, wrestling whenever the teacher turns her back, and building weapon after shooty-weapon out of Legos.

The other day, though, he told me something that he said was very important:

“I have six girlfriends.”

I asked him who they were, and he listed four. “I can’t remember the other two names. But they’re my girlfriends, too.”

Two of his girlfriends were available for a get-together over the weekend at a local farm that has all sorts of fall festivities: glitter face painting (the adults all conveniently didn’t notice that), bounce houses, a petting zoo, hay rides, a corn maze, and much, much, more.

Needless to say, he was psyched to spend the day with some older ladies that he calls girlfriends.

At some point, I asked him what it meant to have a girlfriend. He wasn’t sure, but he was sure that he had a bunch of them.

All in all, the kids had a blast at the farm. They found their way out of the corn maze (eventually!), talked nonstop, screamed almost as nonstop, and generally were the well-behaved awesome kids Alex and I are lucky to have in our lives.

“I had a really fun time with them today. I wish we could see them more,” Alex told me as we were driving home late that evening after a night of s’mores, campfire bananas, and a lot of playing, with only a short break for crying when he managed to fall and get stuck in a teeny tiny doll-sized playpen.

Kid has six girlfriends, and he’s only five. He’s lucky: he’s picked some good ones.