Four Going On Sixteen

Ruby has this creepy new game she calls "Jack and Girlfriend," in which she wants me to pretend to be her boyfriend Jack. She wants me to call her "babe," although she makes me pronounce it "behb," which conjures up a grease monkey with a mullet and a stained wife-beater. Ruby gets all dramatic and says things like, "Jack, I'm going to be so sad if I lose you," and, "I love you so much, Jack!" Has she been sneaking in some soap operas among the Aquabats and Super Why?

During "Jack and Girlfriend," Ruby makes me talk in a really low boy voice. She tries to kiss me, although I adamantly draw the line there, because when I fell for it the first time, she tried to stick her tongue in my mouth. It's just all very gross, everything about it. You know that skit they do on "Portlandia" where Carrie plays Lance and Fred plays Nina? My impersonation of Jack is the embodiment of Lance. I'm suddenly some douchey little scrapbag who's dating my daughter, and I can't stand me.

To make matters worse, I endlessly analyze how Ruby's responding to this guy, and I swear to God, she acts coy and plays dumb. WTF? This is not how I raised her.

I hate that game, and last night I told Ruby I wasn't going to play it anymore because it creeps me out. "Fine," she said. "I'll just get Daddy to be Jack." A little later, I heard Gerardo call her "behb" and enjoyed imagining his reaction when she went in for the kiss.

I can't pinpoint when she started becoming fascinated with all things romance, sometime in the last couple of weeks for sure, but it's been steadily developing for some time now.

We recently pulled into a downtown alley to pick up Gerardo from his studio. A young couple was sitting on a bench making out. Like, really going at it. Ruby was just absolutely fascinated by that.

Ruby: What are they doing?

Me: They're kissing.

Ruby: Why are they kissing like that?

Me: Because they like each other. Quite a lot, apparently.

About two minutes later, she's still staring, open-mouthed.

Ruby: They sure are kissing a lot, aren't they, mom? They must reaaaalllly like each other! They're kissing like this, watch!

And then she made this god-awful, scrunched-up face and moved her head in circles, wiggling her tongue around.

Last week in Target, she was enthralled with a package of men's underpants, presumably due to the half-naked man on the packaging:

And then I came upon this, to my horror:

I couldn't say, "Put that down! That's inappropriate!" because I don't want her to think nakedness and body parts are inappropriate. So she proceeded to point out all the parts and I had to label them. That's a vagina. That's a penis. That's also a penis. And that's a penis too. Vagina. Boobs. Penis. Butt. Boobs. Butt. Butt. Vagina. And so on. I made sure that book made it back to the studio with Gerardo the next day.

At the risk of going f*ing ape sh*t, I did some research this morning to help me decide if I should just cash in Ruby's college fund now and invest it in a sturdy pole, or if her new fascination with nudity and boyfriends is normal. I mean seriously, how is this normal behavior for a four-year-old? This obsession with boyfriends and girlfriends and French kissing and underwear models? And girl parts and boy parts and dog parts and doll parts?

What happened to princesses and superheroes?

According to a million mommy forums and pediatric and psychiatric websites (yes, I was a little concerned!) it's perfectly normal behavior. Disconcerting for the parents, but normal. You should see all the panicked posts from parents! Whew! Glad I'm not alone. Make a mental note of that, new parents, and save yourself some sleepless nights.

The advice is clear across the board: Don't panic. Don't overreact. Stay calm, honest and matter-of-fact. Which is always how I react on the outside. But on the inside, I'm kind of gagging. It's icky when your four-year-old puts her little hands on your cheeks, looks you deeply in the eyes and pulls you in for a sloppy tongue kiss.