"The" Talk

Ajers and I just had a S E X talk. I don’t call it THE sex talk, because I try to be there to answer his questions and make it an ongoing conversation between us. In fact, he knows that I have done it exactly three times in my life, cuz after all, he knows I have three kids. I wish I could recall the conversation word for word, but I guess it’s nice that I can’t because that means it was just such a natural conversation between the two of us. I can’t even remember what sparked the conversation, but it just came up (NO PUN) and we both giggled a little and we both talked.

I love, love, love having this kind of openness with my children. I want them to be able to come to me with questions.

He asked me: “Is it true that some stuff comes out? Like some white stuff?”

I answered truthfully. I try not to over-answer, try not to give too much information, just enough to satisfy the curiosity.

Then he was asking about medicine so you can’t have babies, and I guess he’s hearing about birth control somewhere. I told him that even though you do ‘that’ to have babies, when a man and a woman get married, there’s a closeness they want to share. And he knows I know that his you-know-what sticks up on occasion because he and Tukey laugh and joke about it sometimes when it’s happening. I mentioned to him that I know sometimes it may feel good to touch his body, and I’m a big proponent of the “AND THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!” belief when it comes to touching oneself. Then to explain to him why people do ‘that’ because he kind of just doesn’t understand how it would feel good, I said, “Well, when you feel good, and you love someone, you both should be able to feel good together.”

BUT NOT UNTIL YOU ARE IN LOVE, and practically married, or married, yes, that’s what I meant, NOT UNTIL YOU ARE MARRIED! But he did assure me that he wouldn’t be interested in doing anything like that until he’s like around 25.

Oh my gosh, I am just thinking about what we discussed, and now feel a little freaked out about it. He’s in fourth grade—am I telling him too much? But in fifth grade, they have the big talk at school, so why shouldn’t he be a little bit more informed rather than going into that ‘program’ uninformed and coming out shell-shocked and confused.

So, regardless, he asked questions, I answered them. We giggled, we communicated. We both agreed it was a good discussion.

Just now, he was going upstairs and I heard him say thanks for something but I didn’t know what he was thanking me for so I said, “What did you say?”

As my fourth-grader went up the stairs, he said, “Thanks for the ‘Live-and-Learn’ Mom!”

Yep, live and learn. That’s all we can hope to do. And inform them the best possible way we can.

Thank you, Ajers, for the “Live and Learn” right backatcha!