Well, being the great attentive mother that I am I took my kids for what has become our regular Friday afternoon visit to our local library this past Friday. My eldest always knows exactly what she wants - more books on the AR scale. (AR means "accelerated reader" and she and her sibs have to read books in their point range and then take computerized tests on them - they have a deadline and a certain number of books in each genre they have to read). So, she is always off searching those out. She has gotten older, smarter, but is still in alot of ways naive. Yes, we have had the "period" talk (especially since she is 11 - and she still blushes), and we have talked about how babies are made (but not too graphically), and how they are born.
Now my second child goes to the library to socialize, help the librarians, and color. She is nine and loving life. She has been told much of what her older sister knows, but not all - I haven't gone into as much detail - mainly because she hasn't asked. But, we have read the American Girl book all about girls - or whatever it is called - good, insightful book by the way.
Now my dear third child, being a boy and only five, I haven't really discussed anything except to answer questions he has pointedly asked. I do answer their questions honestly - that is one of the reasons my girls knew who Santa was at ages 6 and 5 - Tate hasn't asked, so I haven't volunteered. He HAS asked about babies. Not how they are made, but how the doctor gets them out of the mommies' tummy (only I didn't remember this, until this fateful trip).
So, at the library this past Friday I let him get a book about the human body. Cute little kid on the front with his ribs shown through an xray in multicolor. It got my attention and for sure got his. Nope - didn't read it, just glanced through it.
When you read it, it shows a fetus inside a womb and talks about the development of the baby and how the umbilical cord provides the food and oxygen the baby needs to survive while the baby is inside the mommy. The picture is extremely detailed and really cool I thought. Anyway, Boo is reading this to him in the back seat while we are driving an hour from my mom's house back to mine. All of a sudden Tate asks, "Momma, did the doctor have to cut you to get me out?" "No" I replied, "no cutting involved."
Tate: "Then how did I get out?"
Boo: (insert blush mentioned above) "Do we have to discuss this right now? You will learn about that later."
Me: "Well, Tate, when it is time the women's body..."(tate interrupts)
Tate: "Don't worry, I already know. {and very matter of factly proceeds forward with the following.} The doctors push on the mommy's tummy and the baby comes out the mommy's bottom."
And then there was silence for a few heartbeats in my car.
For me I was trying to formulate how to proceed and simultaneously wondering when we had previously had this discussion (because Boo is asking him, "where did you hear that?" Tate: "mom told me")
Boo on the other hand was trying to overcome her shock, maybe, or to figure out why her five year old brother knew more than her at that age - who knows.
So - I press on.
Me: "Tate, it is not exactly like that, but close. God gives only girls a special ability for their bodies to stretch when it is time for the baby to come out of their body."
Tate: "yeah, from their bottom"
Me: "riiiiight, but from a special spot only girls have - that is how God designed it."
Tate: "okay, what is it called? that place?"
Boo: "MOM - NO!!"(blush still going)
Me: "Boo, its okay. Tate, it is called a vagina and boys have outside privates called a penis"
Tate: "A what - a penis? And girls have what?"
Boo: "Mom?!"
Me:"A vagina - that is what girls have"
Tate: (bless his soul) "So where is mine?"
Boo: "OH MY GOSH, MOM!!! TATE! ONLY GIRLS HAVE THEM, NOT BOYS!!"
Me: "Boo, do not holler at him- Tate,she is right, only girls have vagina's, boys have penis' do you understand?"
Tate: "Yeah - I think so, Boo, finish the book, okay?"
And there it was the last of my children to have the knowledge that girls have vagina's and boys have penis' and where babies come from and how they get out.
I hope you all have as much fun as I have had with each individual child in the telling of the body parts and how they work and what can be touched and not touched and by whom. It has been very interesting. I am sure I will have to repeat alot as they get older - just to make sure most of the moral lessons have stuck. But really, if you think about it - explaining the "mechanics" of it all is really so much easier than capturing their hearts and making sure they understand why making babies is only for marriage and even sex is only for marriage and all that goes with it - and protecting their hearts, and respecting others. HAVE FUN!!
