No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem...Or Is There?

 DISCLAIMER: This post is in jest, please don't call my mom and tell her I am posting inappropriate pics of my kids. If you secretly think how you would never post something like this, then don't and keep it to yourself! :) Now, read on and enjoy! :)



Last night Ryder, Sawyer and I were outside swinging and playing.  Ryder was his cute and usual self. Oh, and by usual self I mean he had on a superhero cape, rain boots and underwear. Nothing else. I laughed and thought about how quickly he was and is growing up and how one day, I will tell his girlfriends (to his complete mortification) how he always ran around in capes and underwear. Always.

"Astro Boy"

If you know Ryder, you have probably experienced this look firsthand.  I have even been told (or strongly hinted at) that I am borderline inappropriate for letting him run around in underwear so much.  I, however, think he is still basically a baby at 3 and that he doesn't understand that adults see it as inappropriate. (And I am not going to let him run around at age 12 in underwear, but good grief, 3 is a little different.) I do have to admit though, he is kind of obsessed with nakedness and under garments (I am trying to decide how nervous I should be about this). But he is so darn funny and serious about the role of superhero and to him, underwear equals tights. Maybe we should blame the superheroes for wearing such skimpy outfits (I promise Shaun and I are not running around in our underwear and watching inappropriate television) .  But I confess, this tendency to be naked and notice naked is pronounced in him and often extends to situations outside the role of superhero.


Is that normal? I don't know.  Let me give you some examples, then you can help me decide.

Besides the obvious love for underwear wearing, here are other funny and maybe inappropriate Ryder moments:

This is the pic: The heroine in white

The other day Ryder and Jake were in Ryder's room. Ryder had a Marvel calendar that was given to him by a comic loving friend.  In the calendar, the superheroes are not just kiddie cartoons, but are more adult in nature (and I don't mean pornographic, just adult).  One of the female heroines had low slung pants on and curvaceous hips.  I walked in the room to hear Ryder tell Jake in his funniest gruff voice "Oh Jake, hers pants are falling down!" to which Jake replied very seriously, "Ew, Ryder. That is gross." Ryder definitely did not think it was gross, just funny.  I laughed; they sounded so hilarious having this conversation, but that incident, added to some other similar incidents, made me start thinking about this topic.

Another example:

In the car a few weeks back, Ryder was watching his Superman app on my iPad. All of the sudden, Ryder started to squeal "She's naked!!!" I quickly turned around and snatched the iPad out of his hands. He had accidentally opened my itunes account and played a song of Christina Aguliera. The cover shot for this song was a picture of her on the cover of Rolling Stone nude but covered with a guitar (it pops up when her music is played, which is pretty much never btw). I got his Superman going again and gave Ryder my iPad back.  He kept turning it over and I asked him what he was doing. He said "I am trying to see hers bottom." Holy moly.  I just rolled my eyes (and sort of laughed) and told Shaun to pray he didn't turn out to be any kind of pervert!

One of the funniest things Ryder has done lately (which is inappropriate, but he didn't know it) has made me laugh every time I think of it! My friend came over one day and commented on how her baby had shoved a pop-tart in her DVD player. I laughed and said I could top that. Ryder thinks a (not sure how else to put this politely) bottom crack (I tried) is the perfect spot to shove a pop-tart. Now, maybe that is just three year old logic at play, (it is a "slot" of sorts) but everyone who hears that story thinks he is probably going to be a delinquent.

And possibly the example to top them all is the dress incident:
At a baby shower I recently attended with my kids in tow, a very attractive lady came hurriedly walking up with her sun dress wrapped tightly around her legs and saying "Um, whose little boy is this?!"  I looked over to discover it was Ryder (heavy sigh).  He was jerking on her skirt with all his might trying to pull it up! It was all she could do to keep herself covered. I was MORTIFIED.  I immediately pulled him away and sent him off in trouble. I apologized and the lady was nice enough to laugh. She told me she had been bent over when he walked up to her and lifted the back of her skirt all the way up, exposing her rear-end and then he had exclaimed, "I want to see your body!" Good grief! Everyone else found this hilarious--like roll on the floor laughing hilarious. I, however, wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

Honestly, I have, like, 15 more examples of this type of thing.  He recently tried to get me to pull Wonder Woman's tights down because, as he put it, "She wants to be naked." (He said it like it was so obvious). He also watches a particular episode on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse that he always yells that he can see Minnie's underwear.  Last week mom was in her bathroom and Ryder yelled to her (through the closed door) and asked what she was doing. She yelled back, "about to take a shower" to which he said "are you naked? Let me in." I think you get the picture.

So, is this normal? I know some who probably would say I should get on to him more harshly when he does something like this. Granted, if at 10 he is pulling up skirts yelling "I want to see your body" I might look back and think those people were on to something. But right now, I cannot decide if this is simply 3 year old behavior. Is he all of the sudden (by all of the sudden I mean in the last year) aware of nudity and bodies and that they have to be covered up? He is 3, and he does see us in our underwear as we are getting dressed, but we aren't like running around in our skimpies with him! Please make me feel better (or worse I guess) by telling me if I should be legitimately concerned!   Are your kids aware of nakedness? Are you super strict with it or uptight? Please, enlighten me.