In case you're wondering, I see the irony in picturing the child in question with a bunny.
Yeah, he can be a little devil, but the most-sensitive of my three kids, the most boisterous and the one that can always stir the pot as thick as honey really threw me for a loop the other day by something he didn’t say at all.
It was a gesture.
He was gesturing to his older brother, my newly-turned-nine-year-old, and it was a gesture I recalled from my school days. And it referred to the act of intercourse.
Freaking out on the inside, but exuding my cool, calm, I-can-handle-this-no-problem-watch-me-now exterior (beads of sweat notwithstanding), I asked, “Where did you see that?”
“On the bus,” he answered.
“And do you know what it means?”
“Kinda,” he answered.
“Well let me clear it up for you honey, that means sex. And sex is how babies are made. And if you have any questions you just ask me and we’ll talk all about it, but I don’t want to see you doing that again. Ever. Do you understand?”
“Yes, mama.” And that was the end of that. Well, that was easier than I thought.
And then I quickly ran to the bathroom, closed the toilet seat cover and hyperventilated for a minute or two.
Six years old, really?
It was then that I realized I gotta handle this stuff head-on, and based on my initial gut reaction, I had the skills to do it. Okay, eat your Wheaties, mama, I told myself, ya got fourteen more years of this.
