the tale of love

Annika: My story is going to be called "The Tale of Love!"

Frankie: My story is going to be called "Love Tale!"

Annika: You can't call your story that. I already chose that title!

Frankie: No, yours is called "Tale OF Love".

Annika: It's pretty much the same thing.

Frankie: OK. Then I'll call mine...hmmm....

Frankie: I'll call my story "Midnight Love Action!"

Frankie: Mommy, stop laughing! Stop it!

Annika: I don't even get it.

Frankie: Mommy, stooooooop laughing!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Last summer the girls were both obsessed with the whole topic of having babies. We have a couple of children's science books that explain about egg and sperm and the baby growing in the mother's uterus. The girls would bring me those books to read to them every night before bed. Every night I'd try to guide them to another topic, and every night they'd tell me that they wanted to read about making babies. Again.

The books' descriptions of conception and fetal development are as dry as their descriptions of digestion and respiration, but with a surprising degree of detail and lots of illustrations. The one facet of the whole process that gets short shrift is how the sperm actually arrives to make its long journey up the fallopian tube. Which is just the way my little chicken heart liked it. Not that I necessarily believe sex needs to be kept some Mystic Secret from kids, especially since I firmly believe that Sex as Mystic Secret combined with Crazy Adolescent Hormones is a Recipe For Disaster. But it's hard to know when your kids are old enough, and I also know that my kids are already masters of the inappropriate. So I was dreading what sort of public conversations we'd be having once the kids were armed with accurate (and complete) knowledge of the miracle of life.

After many weeks, I was really getting tired of reading about the sperm and egg and fetus. I mean, whatever happened to good old dragons and princesses for bedtime reading?

Then, on the way to the pool last summer, Frankie asked me (out of the blue, but in a tone of voice that let me know she'd been thinking on this for a while), "This doesn't make any sense. If the egg is in the Mommy, and the sperm is in the Daddy, then how does the Daddy sperm get to the Mommy's egg?"

I took a deep breath, trying to get my thoughts in order, assuming that I had reached one of those Big Parenting Moments.

But then Frankie went on in her serious and bemused tone, "Unless...Does the Mommy eat the Daddy? Then the Daddy would be inside the Mommy...But, no..."

In the rearview mirror, I saw her glance down the street in the direction of Jörg's office, where he was working and where he was also most definitely undigested.

I thought another moment while the girls waited in silence, Frankie's frown telling me that she was still trying to work it out.

So I told them exactly how it works. Nothing graphic; no indication that this stuff might have to do with anything other than making babies. Totally straightforward.

A few seconds' stunned silence, and then the backseat erupted in gagging noises and shouts of

"Ewwwwwww!"

"That is so gross!"

"Disgusting! I cannot believe that!"

As I drove on to the pool, I realized that they probably would have been less revolted had I explained that, yes, the mommy does in fact eat the daddy, who then fertilizes her egg by spitting on it, and then the mommy poops the daddy back out and he's back to his normal self a few days later, none the worse for wear. Although possibly a bit stinkier. 

After that, they quit asking to read about the sperm's long journey up the fallopian tube.

Comments

[Kyla]

Hahaha!

The other day BubTar said, "Hey, I finally know what sex is." Though I hated to ask, I did...he replied, "It means if you are a BOY or GIRL...you know, you check it off on those forms!" WHEW!

[Virginia]

Oh, I love it! I needed the laugh....

[TA]

Great story!

[Amelie]

Hilarious!
(Easy to say for me without any children to explain it to ;)

[Coralee Hardwick]

OMG Moorena, I LOVE this story! Thanks for sharing!

[David]

This was so funny that I read it out loud to my wife. Thanks!

[liz]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Similar conversation hereabouts.

[Paige]

Midnight Love Action just killed me with cute.

[Gary Oxford]

I don't know whether "Midnight Love Action" should be the title of an after-hours series on Cinemax or the name for a K-Tel compilation of Chef's (from South Park) greatest hits. Either way, I'm still laughing about it.

[Elizabeth]

Hilarious -- complete with the rainbow hearts. Loved reading this!

[kathy a.]

~snort~ i think we had pretty much the same conversations with the kids. same reaction, too.

[elswhere]

Heeheeheeheehee! My favorite part of this is Frankie glancing over to Jorg's office just to double check her logic and his non-eaten existence.

[Hannah]

I rarely laugh out loud when reading - but Frankie's quickly abandoned idea of 'the mummy eating the daddy' just did it...

If you want to delegate some responsibility for such explanations to Jörg:

http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Minimum-Familie-Lindstr%C3%B6m-bekommt/dp/3473355674/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267910710&sr=8-1

is a great book (translated from the Swedish, I believe...)- not gross, pretty simple but not too simplifying explanations and a lot of fun to read :)

[kiersten from book club]

Ha! We'd better not let our kids get together - our have similar questions that don't stop where I am comfortable! Between the four of them, they know far too much and far too little...

[Purplekangaroopuzzle.blogspot.com]

I also always figured that when a kid starts asking questions, they're ready to hear the answers. I just didn't count on having an extremely intelligent, logical kid with an extremely technical mind who would be able to take vague, not-too-specific answers and make deductions to ask continually more specific, persistent and intelligent questions.

So, yeah, AJ had the whole story by the time she was about 5 or 6, I think. I tried to make it as age-appropriate as possible, but she insisted on details. And continually brought it up in front of the 2 younger kids, too. So Ebee was first introduced to the concepts at a very young age, if she bothered to pay attention, which she didn't much. LOL

[AmyinTexas]

I knew it was time when I discovered that my almost 10 yr old had searched for "nacked ladies" on my iPhone. He was completely embarrassed at being "caught"... but even more embarrassed as I explained how the baby got inside the mom's stomach (which he said was his question). Turns out he wasn't really searching for "nacked ladies", he was searching for one of those side illustrations that shows that fetus inside the woman.

Not my favorite parenting moment!

[ThatDeborahGirl]

My daughter once told me that "so much sex stuff" on TV was "just ewww, disgusting." And I told her, yeah, that like most stuff in TV & movies, it was a bit dramatic, but that the real life "sex stuff" was very important.

"Why?"

"Without sex we don't have more people."

"Oh!" And that's how she made the link. I think she was about 7 or 8. It was an interesting epiphany to witness but the first of many frank conversations. So far so good. 17, no kids. But she's off to college this fall....geesh.

[liz]

Thinking of you today. So happy that the health insurance bill got passed and that Annika's insurance is safe.

[gifts]

Kids, they learn so fast these days, don't know if thats a good thing or bad thing, lol. xx

[wedding registry]

what sweet children they are. I love the story.

[wedding registry]

Aww..that was quite hilarious. Children are always curious just about everything.

[Canada flower shops]

Don't know what is wrong what is rite but i know that every one has there own point of view and same goes to this one

[elliptical reviews]

No offense, but if there's a facebook like button, it'll be much easier for me to share.