the talk

[This is a slightly reworked post from the summer. I have to be Santa and shop tomorrow, so I'm cheating a bit. Plus, people who are reading from Holidailies probably can't be bothered to read the archives. Also, it's very funny, I think. So, win-win. Marked as adult for anatomically correct sexual terms.]

You know, The Talk. The birds and the bees. How babies are made -- at least the old-fashioned way. S-E-X.

The other night, Bebe and Lulu were asking me all kinds of questions about how babies are made. The info they had up to that point: girls have a uterus, a vagina, and eggs; boys have a penis and sperm; the sperm and egg combine to make a baby which grows in the uterus and then is either pushed out or the mother is cut open and the baby is pulled out. Oh, and Bebe got a crucial bit of info about sperm coming out of the penis which she thought was a joke.

Anyway, the discussion was at bedtime and the gist was that they wanted to know how the egg and sperm get together. Mostly, I thought this was a ploy to not go to sleep, so I said we'd talk about it the next day, fairly certain it would be forgotten because they had a field trip for camp the next day. Beebs woke up and the first thing she said was, "So, how do the egg and sperm get together?" I said it was a little involved and we'd discuss it when they came home from camp. As we got in the car to drive home, Elizabeth was all, "So? How? You promised!"

We came home and I explained the basics. There were 2 very funny moments. The first was when Elizabee asked if maybe, since the sperm comes out of the penis, the guy puts the sperm in a cup? Oh, my, I had to force myself to not laugh and go off on an infertility tangent. No need to confuse the poor kids too much at the start. The second very amusing thing was after I'd finished, I asked if they had any other questions. Beebs said, "The man puts his penis in the woman's vagina? I think I'll just adopt."