Thought you might like that, dadpad.
OK, this might be in the "BLABBING" category but <looks right... looks left... coast is clear...> I'm going to go for it.
Yesterday, for some reason, the word "testicle" came up. Sozlet has gotten the birds and bees info, the proper words for various parts, etc., but since the initial explanations were a while ago she keeps coming back to various finer points, and she couldn't remember what that meant. We explained. I added "that's where sperm comes from." She said to E.G., with some horror, "you mean I was made by your PENIS?!"
What followed was, to paraphrase her, TMI. We were more eager to explain and mitigate the ick-factor than she was to listen. We shrugged and tabled it.
Later, I asked her how she'd thought babies were made. She thought it was kissing. She knew about the sperm and the egg, but thought that the sperm was in spit, and then when people kissed (especially in such a way that spit was exchanged), that's when the sperm made the transfer, and then made its way to the woman's egg.
I set her straight.
****
In the proper-words-for-body-parts category -- the other night we were *just* about to turn off the light for bed, when she announced she had to use the bathroom (poop). I sighed/ rolled my eyes/ whatever, and she said, "It's not me, it's my intestines!"
(Er, hope that one didn't offend anyone...)
Out of the blue at dinner tonight, sozlet asked conversationally, "When do you think the world will end?" I didn't think I heard her right, had her repeat a couple of times -- yep, that was it. I stammered a bit, then asked her why she asked.
She shrugged, "I dunno," didn't come up with any specific reason.
I tried to recover and said that I thought the world would be around for a VERY long time.
She said she thought it would be about 100 years.
I said that would be sad, her children and my grandchildren would probably still be alive then, and her grandchildren... she thought and amended it to 300 years.
She didn't seem upset about any of this, just matter-of-fact.
I kept trying to find out what made her think of it, she either didn't know or didn't want to say.
Sozlet is so many light generations past me at that age that I don't have words. .. and past me in good ways.
Not to get all gushy.
Mostly it's good. She'll be early to look around and observe outside herself.
Not to demote myself or any of the rest of us, regarding observation, but I wasn't as articulate as fast.
"Can you tell A2K that in my first soccer game my team won?"
(It was a melee. Every single kid on the field -- about 20 -- going for the ball at all times.)
"Tell them that it was just a cloud of people going around the ball..."
"Cloud", exactly.
Congrats to sozlet and her team for winning the cloud match!
<in full drama mode>
"Sometimes I really don't like soap!
"
Missed photo opportunity... but they were having so much fun and I didn't want to interfere and/ or make them self-conscious.
Three little girls in fairy wings taking turns soaring through the air on the tree swing. Non-soaring girls dancing around, whether accompanied by accordion (which one would pick up and play now and then) or their own singing, in the afternoon light.
So, sometimes it's amazing how sozlet will ask a difficult question and with no particular forethought I'll come up with some right-on response and then after we're done I'll breathe in relief and wonder "where'd that come from?"
Yesterday was not one of those times.
She's pulling books off the shelf and reading them now. She found a book that was my bible when I was pregnant, "Pregnancy and Childbirth" by DK publishers. We know a lot of people who are having babies lately and she's interested, so I didn't interfere even though I knew there were some graphic pictures -- they're scientific/informational-graphic rather than scary-graphic.
E.G. and I were folding laundry while she was reading. She kept asking stuff or commenting, we both could see where she was in the book. She turned the page and it was about which positions work for lovemaking while pregnant. With pictures. Detailed pictures.
E.G. and I had an eye conversation (silent) that went something like:
Me: <eyes widen> Uh-oh
Him: Oooh...
Me: Do we do something?
Him: No...
Me: Just wait...
Sozlet: (Aloud) Mom, what are they doing?
Me: (Thinking = "'they're making a baby' -- oh crap, the woman's already pregnant!") (Aloud) Uhhhhh....
I was well and truly stumped, and looked to E.G. for help. The fact that he'd turned his back and clamped his hand over his mouth was not concealing the fact that he was cracking up. Great.
That made me crack up.
While thinking "Geez, this is enlightened! Ugh, say something!!"
She looked back and forth between us.
E.G. finally swallowed his laughter and said, "They're mating." ("MATING"? Whatever. It's not like I was coming up with anything better.)
She asked "Did you guys do that?
E.G. said, "that's how all babies are made."
She persisted -- "yeah, but did YOU guys do that?"
He allowed that we did.
She was grossed out.
She turned to me and asked, "Did you WANT to?"
I recovered enough to say, "Yes, sometimes it can be very nice."
E.G. jumped in with "If you're grown-up and in love and married and stuff of course."
She nodded uncertainly, and turned the page.
Whew.
Not very graceful, but hopefully that's handled for now...
I say, thank God for Mr. Rogers. T's sister is having a baby; Yaya was quite satisfied with the episode showing kittens being born.
Oh, sozlet used to be satisfied with that stuff. We watched and read a lot of "cute tiny animals being born" sorts of things. Sozlet just keeps circling around to it with more questions... Your turn will come. <cackle>
My daughter is 19.
We (mumpad and I) love to gross her out with big wet smoochey noisy kisses .
That mating story needs to be published beyond A2K (exactly as it was told).
And don't you dare follow this one: "OK, now you have to stop blabbing about me on A2K!!"
I just showed you "did you guys do that" post to mumpad she is laughing so much she has tears.
I may have asked this before, but did Sozlet find the Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters" yet? Did she like them? It's one of my favorite shows on American TV; the presentation is not targeted at children, but I do think a budding young scientist might enjoy it.
Our sozobe... Lost for words?
When cubette finally put together how babies were made and that we had done THAT, she informed me "That is so gross! I'll never do THAT!"
Now that she is 18 I try to remind her early and often how gross it is.
When I was in kindergarten and the kindergardeners told us the story, I found it so implausible it persuaded me of the stork theory for several more years. I remember the kicker being the phrase "because it feels nice", and my reaction being "Come on, I'm too old for that kind of BS".
Kid went on a field trip recently. She needed to bring a lunch -- I wasn't sure if she would have to carry it the whole time or not, so I put it in a simple draw-string bag that could convert to a backpack. After the field trip, she told me (all with very grown-up affect):
"The string on the backpack broke on the bus, and I just couldn't tie it back together. So I was imagining that I would have to
carry my lunch all over the place all day, and that was just [makes a face], but then I found out that our lunches all stayed in a box and then we'd come back to them later, so that was quite relieving."
