The Birds, But Not the Bees... Yet

It seems like it's when I'm on long drives with my daughter that she asks the tough questions.  I try to give kind of low-key, but also honest and factual, but also age-appropriate answers, because I'm hoping to instill trust.  I'm hoping that she'll always feel like she can come to me with her questions.  The problem is that she does.  And some of them are tough ones.

So tonight, the conversation started with her asking me how old a girl has to be to have a baby.  She guessed 18.  Earlier this summer we'd had our first rudimentary conversation about menstruation.  So I was able to reference that conversation, and to remind her that when that starts, that's how you know your body is ready to be able to make a baby.  But then, in a rudimentary, age-appropriate way of suggesting she not get knocked up as a teenager, I told her that, even though her body will be ready in her teens, most girls wait until they're in their twenties to have babies.

But that raised the question of how they wait.  That one's kind of a stumper, when you're talking to a seven-year-old.  So I said, "Well, first they have to fall in love with someone.  You have to have a daddy and a mommy both, to make a baby."

So then she asked, "Is that because you have to mix the two together somehow?"  And I said yes, dying quietly inside, waiting for the next question, the big one.

And then, in a wonderful, unexpected, miraculous reprieve, my daughter quickly jumped in and said, "Don't tell me about that, though.  I don't want to know."

"No problem," I told her.

Whew.

My Daughter is Gifted

My daughter competed in a talent show at day camp.  She played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a kazoo, and sweetly, naively, hoped she would win.  Thankfully the camp counselors gave little plastic gold medals to all the participants, and so my daughter, unclear on who actually won, was happy.  She's not a talented little girl, at least in the traditional sense.

But she does have more obscure talents.  The girl can talk.  And talk.  And talk.  When she went for a haircut, and chattered on and on through the entire appointment, the hairstylist finally said to her, "I think you woke up with a whole lot of words in your body today."  Even when we shush her in exasperation when we're trying to talk on the phone, for example, or sleep, she can talk and talk about how quiet she is being.  We think talking may be her super power.

And she can contain her puke.  When she got car sick in the rental car on the second day of our vacation, we discovered this talent.  We truly appreciated it.  It was a summer vacation in a hot climate.  She held her puke in her mouth until I was able to get a spare jacket arranged in her lap for her to spew into.  (Having a spare jacket along at all times is actually my super power.)

It may be a reach to say that she is gifted.  But lots of times parents of small children will extrapolate from their children's behavior to future success in some high-gain career.  Shrewd negotiating to get their own way over their parents' objections means children are destined to be lawyers.  Bossing around their little friends means children are destined to be president.  By this reasoning, my child is destined to be a lawyer and the president.  Funny how watching children dance around the house naked, refusing to get dressed, rarely makes parents speculate that their children will grow up to be strippers.  But if it did, our daughter would definitely do that too.  She is clearly destined to be a smooth-talking, puke-holding, exotic dancing president, if she doesn't first become a ballerina, cowgirl, scientist, or professional kazoo player.