My four-year-old is.......engaged?

For several months I've been hearing about my daughter's best friend at school, a little boy we'll call Ernie. Each day she'd come home and when we'd ask her how her day went and who she played with, her answer was always the same: "Ernie." Then one day, out of the blue, she said to me, "Mommy, Ernie and I are engaged. He's my fiance." I didn't quite know what to make of that, so I just said OK and figured I'd either hear more about it some other time or never hear about it again.

Sure enough, this kept going - always the little stories about Ernie, always he was the only one she played with at school. They would either play Star Wars - she would be Princess Leia and he would be Luke Skywalker - or they would play Mermaidia (a movie about mermaids put out by the Barbie people in an attempt to bring down the fortress of Disney Princess). So we'd ask her if they were still engaged and she would giggle and say with a little coy roll of the eyes, yes Mommy, we're going to get married when we grow up.

A few weeks ago my husband picked her up at school and called me in the car as I was driving home. "Here, talk to your daughter," he said, and put her on the phone. "Hi sweetie, what's going on?" "Guess what, Mommy! Ernie kissed me today!" ...... "Oh, wow, that's, um, interesting. And what did you do?" "I kissed him back, silly!" Giggle, giggle, giggle. "Where did this happen?" "Under the slide on the playground."

My daughter isn't even five yet and she's already kissing boys. OK, boy, but still! I didn't kiss a boy until I was 14! And no one proposed to me until I was 23! She is waaaay ahead of me already. WOW. I guess what they say is right: kids grow up a lot faster these days.

Last weekend we decided to invite Ernie over for a play date. I wanted to get to know his mom and I knew my daughter had been wanting to have him over for a long time. My husband and I had tea and scones with his mom and really enjoyed hanging out with her. Of course the first thing she said when she sat down was, "So, you know they're engaged, right?" I actually thought this was interesting because part of me was starting to wonder if it wasn't just the imaginings of a very creative little girl. But no, clearly it is mutual because HE told his parents too! She wasn't aware of the kissing so we told her about that. We all had several good laughs about it, and then at some point the play date got very quiet. You know what that means, right?

NAKED!!!!!!! My husband went up to check on them and they were parading around upstairs naked as jaybirds. They actually ran into the bathroom and hid behind the toilet when he showed up. The first thing Ernie said when they were caught was: "It was her idea." And you know what? It was! She came downstairs and gleefully admitted that it was indeed her idea. And grinned from ear to ear as she stifled yet another giggle.

I'll let you know when the wedding is. I wonder if she'll decide to go with white or cream.

Comments

[Sabrina]

Oh wow! Sounds like she was pretty excited about it too! lol

[Heather]

Oh my!!!! I'm having a nervous breakdown just thinking about that. We have had talk of boyfriends, but not engagements or kisses...or naked! Holy crap!!!!!!!!! I think I'll go lock my daughter in a closet now!! ;-)

[-j.]

Jaw is on floor. You forgot to tell me this yesterday.

[bekah]

Wow. So did you have a "we don't get naked in front of little boys" talk yet?

[Stephanie G.]

Well, this just made me laugh and laugh! It sounds like you handled it well. I used to watch my friend's kids and her son kept trying to get Thing One to play "kissing hide and seek" - she never took the bait. She is almost 8 now and I am thinking it is time for some more direct discussions about sex. Scares the pants off me!