Birds and the Bees

I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. It just seems like 7 is too young... by about 5 years. I've heard a few different things about how the topic is supposed to be approached, but one of the tips has stuck with me. Answer the questions as simply and as honestly as possible. Don't give the child more information than they're ready for. Just answer their questions until the questions stop.

Tyton was telling Betsy this afternoon that a girl had chased him at recess and kissed him on the neck. When I got home from work, I was asking Tyton about it. He told me she had kissed him. I made a kissy face and he smiled and hit me. Typical father and son stuff.

About an hour later, I was sitting at the table and Tyton started asking questions. It was obvious that he'd been thinking about it for at least a couple of hours. Here is our conversation as accurately as I can remember it. I'm sure there are dozens of ways I could have handled it, but I'd like to think I did ok. In retrospect, I may have given Tyton too much information, but he's smarter than your average 7 year old... and I'm not just saying that cause he's my son. He really is.

T: Dad? If a boy and girl kiss, does the girl have a baby?
D: No. That's not how it works.

T: How does it work?
D: (hesitating) It takes more than kissing.

T: Like what?
D: (hesitates) How old are you?
T: Seven.
D: Um... you're too young. You don't need to know that stuff right now.

This, of course, wasn't the right thing to say. Tyton can't stand it when he doesn't know a secret. He will ask and ask until you tell him what he needs to know.

T: Just tell me. Please.
D: Ok. Well, a boy and girl can't get pregnant if they have clothes on.

T: So if they're naked, then they can get pregnant?
D: Not exactly, but that's how it starts usually.

I was silently hoping he'd decide he didn't want to know.

T: So then what happens?
D: (realizing I wasn't gonna get out of it easily) Well. Why don't you sit down and we'll talk about it.

Ty sits at the table with me. Betsy is nowhere to be found. She had left to go to the church for something.

D: Well, you know your balls?
T: (laughs) Yeah.
D: Well, your balls have fertilizer in them. It's called sperm.
T: Ok.
D: Girls have ovaries, which are kind of the same size and shape as a boys balls except they're up here (motioning to the rough location of ovaries).
T: (giving me his undivided attention)
D: So girls have eggs in their ovaries. They're so tiny you can't see them. Every once in a while, the ovary lets an egg go and it moves through a tube all the way to their vagina. (no reaction from Tyton. Good sign that he's serious about wanting to know.) The eggs are so tiny we can't even see them without a microscope. Those eggs can't grow into a baby unless they get our fertilizer. If the egg doesn't get our fertilizer, then it falls out.
T: Ok.
D: So how do you think boys can get their fertilizer onto the girls eggs?
T: (thinking) I don't know.
D: Well, do you think a boy can fertilize the egg by kissing?
T: (smiling) No.
D: Nope. You're right.

Tyton continues to stare at me waiting for the next fascinating nugget of sexual wisdom. I sit there for about 20 seconds trying to figure out the best way to tackle the next step in the baby-making process.

D: Ok, now, Tyton. This next part is really private stuff. It's not something you should tell people in your class or anything ok?
T: Ok. I won't.
D: Well, you know how sometimes your penis gets hard?
T: Yeah.
D: Well... um... a guy has to put his penis into a girls vagina.
T: (eyes get really wide) Really?
D: Yeah. It's actually called something when a boy and a girl do this. It's probably a word you've heard before. It's called "sex".

A lightbulb goes off in Tytons head and he starts to smile and nod.

D: Have you heard the word before?
T: Yeah.
D: Where have you heard it? On TV?
T: Well, it's on your dice.

Tyton had recently played with some dice he found in my top drawer. I didn't intervene while he was telling me over and over what he had rolled on the dice. But now Tyton seemed a little bit embarrassed that he had been talking about sex without realizing what it was. Those feelings of embarrassment were another indication that he was ready for the discussion. I don't think most kids would have remembered or even cared.

T: (thinking) So... you and mom did that?
D: We had to in order to get you and Boston and Season.
T: So you did it three times?
D: (trying my best not to smile) Well, Tyton. It's actually a lot of fun... so married people do it a lot. But 7 year olds don't need to worry about sperm. And 7 year old girls don't let any eggs go. That stuff doesn't happen until you get older.
T: Oh. Ok. Good.
D: Do you have any other questions?
T: No.
D: Well, if you think of any, just ask. I'll tell you whatever you want to know, ok?
T: Ok. Thanks.
D: You're welcome.

So there it is. I couldn't be bothered to type "hesitating" before every single one of my lines of dialog, but there was plenty of hesitating and "um's" and "uh's". The conversation took about three times longer to have than it took you to read. I figure I'll need to have similar conversations yearly with slight variations until it fully sinks in... no pun intended.

Learning Worm

One of our old neighbors was sending some stuff to the D.I. the other day and asked if we wanted to look through the toys before she sent them off. One of the "new" toys we received was a purple worm/caterpillar with 26 legs... one for each letter of the alphabet.

Well, of course, Betsy and I end up playing with this worm just as much as the kids do. I mean, c'mon. It's a new toy and it's pretty cool. It has a few different settings on it. One setting will say the letter of the alphabet when you push on the leg. Another setting will play a short song for each leg. The most enjoyable setting is the one that says the sound of the letter when you push the leg.

We don't really need to discuss how this ended up happening or anything, but at some point Betsy and I decided to push three letters in rapid succession and see if it sounded like the worm was actually SAYING the word we were spelling.

Here I am sounding out the word "fun":


Then we tried the word "car":


Doesn't work quite as well because it says the wrong sound for "a".

Eventually we got bored spelling normal words and decided to see have the worm say some nasty words. I really hope that other parents do this kind of thing. I actually think it's funny to picture my parents doing stuff like this with my toys when I was five years old. I don't know if my parents did this or if Betsy and I are just weird that way.

Apparently, the makers of this Learning Worm figured that an older brother (or maybe a parent) would try to spell bad words so they programmed in a "safety".

This is what happened when we pushed "c", "o", "k":



And "f", "u", "c":



Betsy even got creative while I was taping these and said "When it says the 'f' sound, it doesn't just go 'fffff'... it actually says "fffu'. So let's just try 'f' and then 'k'." Well we tried that, as well:


That's right. The makers thought of everything. It doesn't say the last sound. Instead the worm giggles and says "That tickles." It totally ruined all our horrible parenting fun. Those savages.

Fizical Flaws

Almost every day I look at my wife and wonder how on earth I was able to score such a hottie. I'm not just saying that, either. I really do wonder what I did to get her to fall in love with me. I mean, I've always prided myself in my kissing ability, but once you get married that kind of thing dies down... so she must love me for something besides my sweet succulent lips.

Whenever I ask her, she goes down the usual list of positive attributes and qualities. The other day I told her I was thinking about doing a blog post about my physical flaws... you know... like my lack of pectoral muscles. She was not excited at ALL about this post and she fought it every inch of the way. Every time I'd mention something about myself she'd have some sort of rebuttal to try to make me feel better. I kept asking her for contributions, but she refused to participate. She just sat on the couch and shook her head and tried to make me feel better while I was making my list.

What I've decided to do is write out my list of flaws, followed by the reply my wife gave me when I brought it up. Here we go:

C: My feet turn out a little bit when I walk... kinda bow-legged.
B: Lot's of people walk like that. It's not like you had braces on your legs or anything.

C: But I also slouch when I walk which makes me look kind of goofy.
B: Yeah, but didn't your brother have a bit of scoliosis? That's probably what it is.

C: My nostrils are different shapes.
B: No they're not.
C: Yes they are. Look.
B: (looking) I've never noticed that before. I'm sure no one else has either.

C: My arm hair stops in the middle of my upper arm. There's like a line where it stops... like I shave my upper arms or something.
B: But when your shirt is off, people are looking at your arm muscles... not the hair on your arms.

C: My lazy eye still does it's own thing occasionally.
B: It mostly did that before your lasik. I haven't noticed it at all since then.

C: I have these fangs that all the primary kids used to make fun of.
B: Nobody has said anything since the dentist filed them down, have they?

C: I have a bald spot on my chin that prevents me from growing a beard or bitchin' goatee.
B: I hate facial hair anyway. I never want you to grow any hair on your face.

C: I don't have a butt at all.
B: I think your butt is so cute. I wish I had your butt.
C: That doesn't make me feel any better.
B: But it's so cute when you dance around and wiggle it.

C: My wiener is average... at best.
B: It's all I can handle, honey.

C: My fingers are so dainty and girly. Guys have actually told me that my hands are "so soft".
B: I love how smooth your hands are. Callouses are gross and scratchy.

C: I have really patchy, random, shoulder hairs that are black and curly and gross.
B: You don't have that many and I'll pluck them out whenever you'd like.

C: Sometimes I get a sour stomach when I'm stressed and when I burp it literally tastes and smells like poo.
B: (long pause) Yeah. That's true. That's a good one. Write that one down.

My wife is awesome!

Bad Mom!

Sometimes I'll be at work and Betsy will call me to tell me how her day is going. Sometimes she vents for a while about how hard our kids are being... and occasionally she'll say stuff like, "I've been so mean to the kids today." or "I'm such a bad mom." I try to make her feel better by telling her our kids deserved whatever they got, but it seldom makes her feel better.

We have this program on our new computer that lets you do funny stuff with the built in camera. Our kids have figured it out and they'll spend hours taking pictures and video of themselves.

The other day I was up pretty late and I stumbled across the file that stores all of the images and video. I browsed through it and really got a candid sense of what actually goes on while I'm at work. I came to the conclusion that even though Betsy feels like a bad mom every once in a while... a TRULY bad mom doesn't do this stuff.

Season's 3

Shut Your Fat Face!

"Shut your fat face or I'll shut your fat face with my fist in your face!"

-Season

Rearranging our furniture is kinda like finding buried treasure at the landfill.