The Birds and The Bees

I knew this day would come. Dreaded it, actually. The day my sweet, innocent, tender little man came into the world, I can remember thinking; "someday, he's going to ask me about s.e.x., and someday, he'll have it". Eeek! I know! What a horrible thought, but ya know, I'm always looking forward. Now he's only 5, so don't get all worried about the having it part, cause, I think we're still at least a good, oh, 25 years away from that milestone (a parent can only hope). But the subject has now officially been broached in our household. One of my most tremendous fears has come to pass. And I've spent a lot of time worrying about what I would say when he started asking questions. I've also spent a lot of time trying to convince husband that he should be the one answering questions, since he's a boy too (yeah- trying to shirk my duty, I know). "I'll take the girl", I say, but I know that when she starts to become curious, it'll be just as dreadful.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with the "birds and the bees" and I do think that children should be taught by their parents on these matters, but that does NOT make it any easier to do. It's like when I was 12 and I stole a chap stick from a drug store. I felt so guilty right away, in fact, my intestines still squirm with guilt when I think about it to this day. I was told the best way to feel better would be to take the chap stick back. I couldn't do it, I was too afraid so I just threw it in the trash. I can't throw my childrens' sex education in the trash however much I wish I could. *sigh*. I knew I would have to face it someday.

So this is how it all went down. I was folding a pile of laundry in the living room, underwear in fact. The young man came in looking perplexed. I'm sure his thought process was something along the lines of; where his latest lego creation had gone to, how cool transformers are, when in the world would Cyberchase be on TV again, how the bad guys are so much more cool than the good guys (Megatron obsession over here), and how perhaps I wouldn't do a sniff check on his undies at bedtime and find out that he'd wet them just a little bit because he got too into building things with his legos to take a potty break in time like he does every.single.day.....you know, normal 5 year old boy stuff. I just know he wasn't actually thinking about, well, you know. I think it was the panic induced by the wetting his pants a bit thought, or maybe just that too many little boy concerns flooded his mind all at once, but the effect was a temporary, heart stopping, panic inducing, oral diarrhea that produced the question: "Mommyhowdobabiesgetoutofyourtummy?", said real quick-like. "What sweetie", was all I could muster for a good 5 seconds that seemed like 10 minutes. Oh I'd heard him the first time alright, but I was simply hoping that perhaps I had heard him wrong and he'd actually asked something like: "Mommycantyouanddaddyhaveanotherbaby?" (cause he really wants a little brother, sisters are "the worst" apparently).

My mouth went real dry all of a sudden and I needed a really big glass of water so that I could regain my ability to swallow correctly. My stomach started doing horrible, nausea inducing flip-flops, and I'm pretty sure I was breathing faster than is necessary during casual conversation. Two seconds passed, then 5 seconds, then my palms started sweating and I silently cursed husband for being at work. The thought crossed my mind that we were at the tip of the sex iceburg with the baby question and that global warming was melting that iceburg into nothing. "What do I say.....I mean, holy heck, what do I say?!". So I came up with this: "Well young man, the mommy goes to the hospital and the doctor helps the baby come out", to which he replied "okay" and skipped off looking so much more at ease. Ba-rilliant! Success! And he was satisfied with that tiny, harmless little bit of information. Someday the big talk is coming, I know it, I can feel it. And when we do talk, he'll probably roll his eyes and tell us he'd known about "that" since he was 3. Until then, less is definitely more.