i think that children sense weakness, and instinctively act accordingly. kurtwood is a compassionate and polite child with a bit of a wild side. you know, a little boy. he’s not the sort of child that would deliberately take advantage of mommy being in a weakened state, i really don’t think he can help it.
so today he’s eating a pizza lunchable. red sauce and shredded cheese. sitting on the white couch, with the food on the antique coffeetable. i tell him to go over to the table. he says this is the table. we go back and forth on this but to tell you the truth i was suffering the effects of a fierce gravity storm and had to give up and lie down. oy.
so he picks this moment to get a quizzical look on his face and say, ‘i think that daddies grow boys and mommies grow girls’. i’m speechless. then he thinks a minute more and says ‘maybe daddies don’t make boys?’ and looks at me for some sort of clarification on the issue.
a couple of helpless half-sentences stagger through the narcotic haze in my mind, none of them adequate to the task at hand. well, you go with what you’ve got: ‘uh, no, only mommies make babies’. he’s still looking at me expectantly. i add: ‘but daddies help’ and i’m thinking please please please don’t ask.
thankfully he does not. *whew* that was close.
If he’s still young and does ask for details, I’d say “A baby is like a flower. Daddy plants the seed, then mommy makes it grow”.
he’s five — and he’s not asking for further details, which i am so, so, so grateful for.
a fierce gravity storm OMG, kd!! I LOVE that line!
)
hope the next set of questions come after the narcotic fog has lifted.
you have a white couch? and a 5 year old? nyeesh. you ARE a freaking goddess.
it came with the house. and it’s most assuredly *way off* white by now, i’m just trying to keep the marinara sauce off it.
funny, i think of it as white – i just took a good look at it and — it’s now officially “the couch formerly known as the white couch”. sheesh, this thing needs a cleaning!
you know, i can’t for the life of me recall ‘that’ conversation with robby but i’m pretty sure i told him when he was about 6 or 7. wonder what i said?
i mean: *i* wonder what i said.
he he. that question is soooooo much fun. my kids know now and it was quite the hard convo to have.
I’d tell him he was hatched from an egg I got at the grocery store, but I’m not recommending it.
*snickering at the egg hatching thing*
But wow, what a great weekend that would have been – shingles and explaining the facts of life? Oh no, way too much on your plate without that!!!
Perfect answer, kd!
My mom had bought every Joy of Our Bodies Our Selves graphics heavy sex organs and how to use them manual that was hip by 1975 for little 5yr old me. That stuff was like anti-porn, and pretty much too little too late after the parties she took me to back then. My eyes rolled so hard when she offered them to me. As your most charming of young men has shown, kids’ll ask when they want to know.
my parents bought this book with illustrations of fried eggs, sunny-side up, and smiling tadpoles. it was almost entirely unrelated to anything to do with human reproduction, but it served to tide me over till i was old enough to snoop through their bedside tables for ‘everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask’ and other educational tomes from the sexual revolution.
which of course i smuggled to school and my friends and i read passages out loud at recess and giggled in horror and squealed “ewwwww gross”.
My mom pretty much told me everything when I was about 4 or so. I asked, she answered. She was never good at lying or withholding information.
At 11, she asked if I understood what a prophylactic was, since we had just watched “Good Morning, Vietnam” together.
At 13, she told me all about impotence and oysters since it was part of a joke on “Night Shift”.
At 15, she asked if I needed to borrow some condoms.
She was pretty cool
i hear you need a hug my dear….
{{{{{ soft hugs }}}}}
there…i hope you feel better soon!
thanks, i am feeling better. thanks in part to medical science, and thanks in a large part to my friends, who’ve been just wonderful.
I thought the “L” was for Lesbian!
actually it is a meme — blame michele and miguel for their kids doing it first, then when my kid saw the picture, well, he had to do that too.
When my boy was 6 he asked how he got here. I told him he grew in my tummy till he was ready to come out. He thought about it for a minute and said: and I fit in there?
I had to turn away because I was ready to burst out laughing and didn’t want him to see.
A week later, he asked but HOW did he get in there?
Me shouting to the next room: “DADDY! come in here”
My dad always told me that they got me at Wal-Mart and if I didn’t behave he’d return me.
*hee hee hee* *ha ha ha*
All this, and the picture of Kurtwood at the top of the page giving me the big “L” for Loser is just too, too much!