29 August 2013

the waw-waw

I opened the shutters to call Young One in for the evening, and I found her engrossed in serious conversation with Gloria and Sara, two neighborhood girls who are about a year older. This is a normal scene here in the paese, nothing out of the ordinary: three girls hanging out on a cool summer evening, and what a treat to be free of the pesky boys who outnumber the girls in these parts!

"Mamma! Is it true? Is it true that it takes you and Daddy together...his 'waw-waw' inside your --"

"His what?"

Giggles, even from those who don't understand our conversation in English.

For nine solid years we have used the words penis and vagina to name those body parts (purposefully! exclusively! ) and the backyard sex reproduction talk turns it into a "waw-waw" in an instant. What the heck?! I feel defeated.

By the way, do you have a good illustrated sex education book to recommend for my fourth grader? It's time, and I want back up. Evidently little Sara has a book and has become quite the expert in the crowd of local nine and ten year olds. If I know Sara, she is preaching abstinence too, good little Catholic church-going altar girl that she is.


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8 comments:

  1. Alla8/29/13, 9:33 PM

    oh waw..... waw...so it starts at 9 now days!??? mammamia...

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    1. Dana8/30/13, 6:39 AM

      Well. I don't think anything has "started" just yet. They are just talking. Sara is a year (or two?) older and knows about reproduction...so she is the wise sage for the others. Young One still thinks boys are gross.
      d

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  2. suzanne8/29/13, 10:02 PM

    someone had suggested these - i saved and noted for when the time is right. maybe they may be a decent starting off point: It's So It's Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm,...
    by Robie H. Harris. The Boy's Body Book: Everything You Need to... by Kelli Dunham. It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Gro... by Robie H. Harris. and http://birdsandbeesandkids.com/

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    1. Dana8/30/13, 6:40 AM

      Thank you!
      I will certainly get more than one. I want her to be entirely informed.
      D

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  3. Anonymous8/30/13, 3:09 AM

    I haven't seen it myself, but I have stored in my Amazon lists the recommendation from a mama-friend I trust implicitly: Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle. Apparently there's a companion book, too, that explains puberty. Oy! Good luck :)

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  4. Dana8/30/13, 6:43 AM

    Thanks. She is a bit already since I've answered any questions she has asked. This is the first time she's hear of the physical act including the body parts. Oy. She caught me completely off guard on that one, but now I feel an urgency to get it right and from me, rather than from sweet Sara and her friends.
    d

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  5. likeschocolate8/31/13, 5:16 AM

    This post made me almost pee my pants from laughing so hard. When I was a kid, I had a friend who called the penis a howdy doody. I guess her mother couldn't come to terms with saying penis. We use proper terms here though I kind of like to call a vagina a China. Why? Don't know been calling it that since highschool.

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    Replies
    1. Dana9/6/13, 6:26 AM

      China!? I've heard lots of terms but never that one.
      d

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