The Hairy Scary Talk

My daughter, D, is 9 years old. She's pretty darned intelligent and mature for her age, which I think is pretty darned awesome. Nothing escapes her, except my repeated requests to put her laundry away.

So while I was making dinner, my daughter threw this question at me from out of nowhere - "Mom, how old were you when you got your period?" There was a moment of shock as she just randomly jumped from learning the great delights of classic Sawyer Brown tunes to female biology like a train jumping a track.

So I answered her. I thought, "Okay, this is cool. She's finally curious about the whole puberty thing." And then the questions kept coming. Before I knew it, we had covered female menstrual cycles, puberty, sex, what males go through in puberty, erections, birth control and a little bit about STD's.

Really, I don't get why parents make such a big hairy deal about "The Talk". Is it really hard to tell your kids about normal human biology? Is it that hard to say the word "vagina"? GMAFB. Do you teach your kids to cross the street by calling cars "beep beeps"?

Is pubic hair really that hard to talk about? Really? It's just hair. Relax.

So yeah, I had the talk with my daughter and I feel good about it. I only hope that as she grows older that she still comes to me with her questions.

Her dad, my ex-husband, sounded like he was going to have a heart attack when I told him about our conversation. I jokingly said, "Just so she doesn't catch you off guard by asking you if you get erections... we had the good old sex talk." I could almost hear the blood drain from his face. He stuttered out, "I... I would be... really uncomfortable if she asked me that." Why? I responded, "It's a simple question. The answer is also simple. You just tell the truth. Yeah, you do, because you're a man and men get erections. And just leave it at that. You don't have to make a big issue of it. Just answer her honestly."

Hasty. Change. Of. Subject.

I could go into an in depth analysis here of how is mother is a major prude (seriously- have you ever had the torturous experience of hearing a 50+ woman refer to her genitalia as her FOOFER?) and how that has impacted him. I could go on and on about it. But really, it all ends the same way. Parents need to get over this big dumb fear of educating their kids about their bodies.

So yeah, just another day in the life of me.

My son, R, is also going through some shocking growth. He's just shy of 10 months old and for the first time actually held AND DRANK FROM a sippy cup. Normally he just likes to throw them and see how much distance he can get. Tonight *trumpets and dramatic music please* he actually HELD ONTO IT! AND DRANK!

Sometimes it's amazing to think of how fast life changes...