A few days ago we bumped into my oldest daughter’s friend, who also happens to be a boy. My babysitter, who was with us, saw my daughter whip out her lip gloss from her purse and apply it liberally to her almost-9-year-old lips when she saw her boy-who-is-a-friend approaching us. Apparently the two had a flirty conversation for a few minutes before the small talk reverted to discussing typical fourth-grade stuff.

Later, I caught my youngest pretending to put on lipstick and talk to her imaginary boyfriend as she mimicked the behavior of her older sibling. Yikes!!!

I’m trying to stay calm and embrace the idea that my daughter is learning how to be friends with the opposite sex. She has no brothers and her only real contact with boys is her dad. However, I’m really on the fence about this psuedo-dating thing that has erupted with her and her friend. Some days as I watch them interact, I say to myself, “Awe, it’s so cute.” But as my babysitter revealed the whole lipstick application story to me, my heart sunk and fear set in. I‘m not really ready for boy troubles and all the heartache and drama that comes with having testosterone in your life.

While I adore my daughter’s choice of boys in this particular case, I’m sure there will be others that I won’t be so thrilled to embrace into the circle. I try to never let her see me sweat about the boy stuff; instead, I act really cool and try to make it a non-issue. I figure that if I turn boys into the forbidden fruit, they will only become that much more attractive to my daughters.

I remember my first friend-who-was-a-boy, Mike, that I introduced to my father. Poor Mike was so terrified of my dad that he would jump everytime he came in the room. As much as I’d love to buy my husband a big shotgun to scare off the boys, I think we’re going to have to come up with an alternate plan to manage the whole boy craze that’s sweeping our house.

All hope for the future has not been lost, however. I discovered that one of my daughters isn’t so hip on boys when she said, “Mom, I don’t like boys. I don’t see what the big deal is about them anyways.” At least I’ve bought myself some time with her for a few years.

Question: How do you handle the whole friend-that-is-a-boy dilemma?