Wednesday, December 1, 2010

You have what where?

I think I've mentioned before (but I'm too lazy to look) that it's important to me to teach my kids the appropriate words for body parts. We have no "privates" or "pee pees" or *shudder* "front butts." We have penises and vaginas. (I tried "vulva" but that just sounded too weird.) Boobs if we're feeling crazy. I have a lot of reasons for this, including a desire for my kids to be comfortable with their bodies, but most of it stems from my mommy/prison psych freak-outs. *Essentially, it's much harder to investigate and convict abuse if the kid can't tell you what happened in words people understand.

I know I've mentioned before that Eli loves to be naked and is VERY comfortable with his body. He streaked Thanksgiving without a second thought. So tonight he tells me, very matter-of-factly, that he has two eyeballs in his scrotum. Just picture that. And I was tired and not paying super close attention to what he was talking about (MOTY, I know, but really, this kid is a 24/7 running commentary.) And I'll admit, I just didn't have the energy to explain reproductive anatomy to a four-year-old. So for now, yeah, the kid's got eyeballs in his scrotum. I can't wait for that note to come home from school.

4 comments:

  1. awesome!! I love it!! Jack asked me REALLY LOUD in the Target bathroom why I have no testicles. He was really concerned about them and where they might have gone, and I am going to start reading him Lacan and Kristeva right away.

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  2. What can I say? Love that kid!

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  3. As I've been reading, so many of your posts sound like they could have come from our house. We had an exhaustive conversation on tampons are for vaginas and why Stinky doesn't need to know more. It ended with him saying "Well, your vagina must need a haircut."

    Time o buy a bathroom lock.

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  4. oh, and around here, "front butt" was a term we used in school to describe a teacher's unfortunate pants... sort of the obese version of "cameltoe".

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