Let's pretend my penis is a jellyfish!

I prefer to think of my penis as a huge electric eel or a great white shark....

Oh my. I think I'd better explain this a bit better.

I don't think the kiss the jellyfish game is in any way sexual and here's why:

My hands serve as the stand in for many characters from Mo's imagination -- my hands are more flexible and expressive than any action figure and most importantly, the rest of me comes with my hands.

For example, my right hand is often Mr. Turkey - the conductor of Mo's railroad -- while my left hand serves as various passengers, etc.

During the course of a day my hands will be bed bugs, aardvarks, sloths, bees, dogs, rats, snakes, "the little idiot" (another favorite character), and yes, jellyfish.

In the bath Mo likes to play with canned squirt soap. He squirts a bit of foam out and pretends its a jellyfish so jellyfish is a natural bath time game.

I was drying him off and he was playing like his hands were jellyfish and his penis just served as a handy baby jellyfish.

I was okay with all of that, it was kind of funny actually.

It was when he wanted my hands to be jellyfish and have them kiss the baby jellyfish that things got a little complicated.

I did the old dodge and distract but he seemed a bit taken aback that this game was any different than say, Mr. Turkey. I explained that his penis was his own thing to pretend with and that nobody else got to play with it. It wasn't a big serious conversation it was more -- thats one thing you don't have to share.

The reason I ask the question is that I want to make sure that I find the appropriate line between that's fine and thats not fine.

Okay. Now I'm going to go back and reread the responses. Thank you all!

Lol! You did great!

Let's just get this out of the way --

Slappy, BVT is right. If you're going to compare your penis with sea life and jellyfish is probably not your best choice.

BVT - I think I'll hire your band for Mo's high school prom. Then, when they dump a bucket of pig blood on him and he sets the room on fire you'll have a front row seat. You have about 13 years to prepare an escape strategy.

I can get on board with the "don't make a big deal out of it" which seems to be the advice all of you are giving. Appropriate and inappropriate are big topics of conversation around here but I'm not entirely sure about this.

Playing jellyfish like I described above is entirely appropriate, I think, until I was invited to join.

My hesitancy really puzzled Mo. This was a fun game why wouldn't I join in?

I think I got out of it okay last night but Mo rarely drops any new game, especially when it gets an unusal or unexpected reaction so I imagine that the jellyfish game will be repeated.

I don't want to send some big bizarre message about his penis or really about any part of his body which I think all have the same level of relevance in his opinion.

It might be time to start introducing a bit more biology into our vocabulary. Really our only discussions other than body parts has been when he wanted to know how our neighbor's baby got out of her belly. He was concerned that it came out of her mouth so I explained that the baby didn't grow in her stomach or belly but in a special place called a womb and that the baby came out of her vagina which is between her legs. That seemed to answer his question and he hasn't brought it up again.

We do talk about body "ownership" things.

LionTamer - What apple? What tree? What are you suggesting?

Amigo - Mo is only 4 years old. While there might be some mild, unrecognized sexual componet to the jellyfish game I don't think it was a sex game.

Thanks dlowan!

I do know how you do your job but I'm glad to know that you're doing it.

Boomer, I was commenting on this:



Papa bear has also been known to be a bit of a ham regarding his penis.

I found it quite funny.

Oh I see!

Boys always will be boys, no matter of their chronological age

I guess we all understand the jellyfish incident a lot better
now boomerang, nonetheless using the word penis for his
penis is probably a better choice, and I agree with you that
a little biology lesson is even for a four year old a good idea.

As always boomerang, you know all the answers yourself,
you just need a bit reassurance - that's all !

sozobe

I agree that penis is the best word for penis.

But when my hand is Mr. Turkey and my knee is the mountain and my foot is the sandy beach and his hands are Bob and Wendy and his knee is their "pook" it gets hard to explain why his penis can't be a jellyfish!

Boomer--

Eventually the jellyfish will ride off into the sunset.

Mo is a child of infinite resource and creativity. Do let us know what replaces the jellyfish. I'm sure it will be spectacular.

How old is Mo?

Mo is 4 9/12ths.

Did I mention I have no kid have never taken care of kids and don't know what the hell i'm talking about. This is just what would cross my mind if it happend to me. I'm might be taking it to far the other way witch is alao bad now that I see he's 4yrs old.

Oh.

As you know, I have absolutely NO experience with children, but I'm trying to remember time frames in my childhood.

Truly, these are serious questions as I don't know the various ages when kids do things.

Unfortunately in this situation, I was a damned independant little snot, and was probably brewing my own coffee by that age "Damn mommy, you NEVER make it strong enough, and can't you remember I take it BLACK"?!

At what age does a kid start drying himself off after a bath?

I remember before kindergarden taking my own, with my mother or sister in the room, with the curtain closed.
I'm sure they helped, but I remember washing and drying myself.

I do remember not wanting them to see me naked though. But then again, I was an odd child.

amigo--

Congratulations on a graceful retreat. Well done!

uuhh, thanks.

wow noddy, I didn't know you spoke amigo-ese.

Could you translate what was said into english please?

Chai Tea--

Amigo either considers my commendation of dubious value or he'd rather that his Rush to Judgement had been buried forever two pages ago.

Or he could be winding up for a cock-a-doodle-doo in the spirit of the thread.

I still think little kids are perverts. I remember when I was a little kid me and this little girl (Punky, That was her nickname) Used to rub eachothers butts together. One of these days I'm going to find her and ask her if we can rub butts again. Hey, whats Amigo-ese? I thought I was getting better.