I was warned before my son started Pre-K that first grade may bring about the great love of Cole's life.

"Oh, watch out," a client told me. "When I started first grade, I met this girl and went home and told my Mama I had found the girl I was going to marry."

"What happened?" I asked.

"We've been married for 27 years," the client smiled.

That man may have been right.

Oh, there had been other little girls before first grade.

Starting in day care there was a little girl who just adored Cole.

When he started Pre-K, he met another little girl and they were already arguing like an old married couple by the time they finished kindergarten, usually about her shameless eating of pork in which she taunted Cole with "Piggie is delicious."

I adored both little girls, but felt certain the kindergarten love would put me in a better nursing home one day.

And I just figured Cole would do like most little boys and find someone like his mother.

Or, in his case, someone bossy who wears too much eye makeup and snorts when they laugh.

I knew something was up when we were watching a movie one evening and he commented that the actress had eyes like the new girl.

A week later, Cole asked his father for advice.

"What do you do when you like a girl?"

Lamar told him he would tell her.

Cole thought about that.

"Nah, I don't think I like that. That doesn't sound too good."

Cole later announced that he wanted to find out everything he could about the new girl.

He was going to find out her interests, her hobbies, what her favorite color was.

"And he was asking you for advice?" I teased Lamar. "You may want to get a few pointers from Cole."

After we finished the homework that evening, I asked Cole why he liked this little girl.

"Well," he began slowly, "she's very nice, Mama. She's pretty, and very sweet."

"She sounds nice," I said. "Nice and sweet are good qualities."

"Yeah," Cole said. "She's really a very nice girl. She's really quiet, though and doesn't talk much."

I nodded, encouraging him to tell me more.

"And she has really good manners," he added, "and is very ladylike."

I have told Cole there's plenty of time and years of veterinarian school to finish before he should even think about getting married.

Maybe he's turning that old paradigm upside down if he does end up picking a girl that is 180 degrees different from me.

And maybe that's not a bad thing after all - a ladylike girl that's nice and sweet with good manners may be a breath of fresh air to my family.

I hope whoever she is, that she and I get along.

She will be helping pick out the nursing home they stick me in after all.

Sudie Crouch is an award-winning humor columnist and certified life coach. She lives in the north Georgia mountains with her family and four insane, but fairly well behaved dogs.