*Explicit* conversations with my 4 year old.

Every morning in my house is a nightmare. I have yet to figure out a way to get everyone up, dressed and fed by 9am, but I'm sure it will come with time. So this morning, after getting 2/3 kids ready for the day, we were in the home stretch when it happened. Me and the kids were in Micah's room getting him ready when the conversation I have avoided like the plague takes place. I was changing Micah's diaper (who is 1 by the way), and he kept poking his boy-parts saying "what's this?". Ever so quietly, I whispered to him "a penis". Of course my 4 year old daughter Elaine heard, and very brightly said "Arie has one too". I said "Yep, he does". Then she said, "Mine is on the inside". As you know I'm a labor and delivery nurse. My daughter knows WWAAYYY more than most children about childbirth, but knows NOTHING about what happens prior to the delivery. I have kept her in the dark about that. Not because I'm scared/embarrassed to talk about it, but because #1) She has a BIG mouth and will tell every other kid in the world every detail she knows, and #2) because answering one question naturally leads to more oh-my-God-my-daughter-is-growing-up-too-fast questions. I don't think I'm quite ready to explain HOW babies get in their mommy's bellies in the first place.

Hoping that further questioning isn't brought on, I decided to honestly answer her question. After 4 years of calling everything below the waist and above the knees a "bottom", apparently now is the time to tell her that word... the word that, to me, sounds like it came from a sci-fi movie. "Bottom" was so much easier. And if I needed to get specific I could just say "the front of your bottom" or "the back of your bottom". With the word "bottom" I've also been able to avoid further questioning about the difference between boys and girls.

So anyway, I took a deep breath and answered her question. I said to her, "No Elaine, you have a vagina". Without a pause she said "I like that word, it rhymes with China.". And that, my friends, was the end of the conversation.

Of course, I had to inform her that we don't say the words "penis" and "vagina" at pre-school. Knowing her though, I'm sure that the other 9 girls in her pre-school class went home today and shouted as they walked through the door "Mommy, I have a VAGINA!!!"