The Birds And The Bees

One day, I was chatting with one of the volunteers at the Book Exchange who has a very active role in the lives of her grandchildren. She told me about a conversation she had with them about a family member who was going in to the hospital to have some blood tests done. Her 7-8 year old granddaughter wanted to know what the tests were for, but she didn't know. Her granddaughter concluded that it was "probably to find out if she's pregnant." She replied that those were usually urine tests, not blood tests. Her granddaughter's response was "oh, yeah... and that's how you get pregnant, too." She figured that, as a grandparent, that was not something she was compelled to address one way or the other.

Her story made me wonder how someone could get to that age without a clearer understanding of such things... and made me wonder what strange misconceptions (heh) were in my kids' heads. The very same day, I was reading a book with Larkin and Finn in which someone was described as "having no father." Larkin's response: "What does it mean she 'has no father'?! *Everyone* has a father... or at least some man willing to give up his sperm."

Apparently we crossed that bridge without ever even noticing it was there.

We've been having unseasonably chilly weather (don't worry, the sex talk is over) the last few weeks. We were sitting at the kitchen table, watching as the snow melted out of the trees:

Finn: "Snow falling out of trees?! What the hep?"
Larkin: "Heck, not hep."

While we were at the grocery store, Finn leaned out of the cart and sniffed me so ostentatiously that a fellow shopper actually asked him what I smelled like. His response: "Like a human!"