October 22, 2009

Private Parts

I knew eventually this day would come. Still, I was not prepared for the conversation I had yesterday with one of my daughters.
Cakes: Julius pees out of his belly button.
Me (distracted): No, honey, no one pees out of their belly button.
Cakes: Yes, Julius does.
Me (starting to pay attention): No, no he doesn't.
Cakes (indignant): Yes, he does. Like this...
At this point I turn to look at her. My eyes slowly widen and, based on her pantomimes, I realized why she thinks a little boy at preschool pees out of his belly button. (Try simulating the act of a male urinating. Her hands were somewhere around the button of her pants and her belly button). Here's what raced through my head:
Don't panic. Don't panic. She's four. You can do this. Oh crap I'm hyperventilating. Breathe...
I have always been pretty straightforward with my daughters when it comes to body parts. I never set out to be that way, but it's a lot easier to use proper terms than to try to remember what slang was used in previous conversations. So I took a deep breath and calmly explained that boys and girls have different private parts. After learning that Julius does not pee out of his belly button she seemed a lot less interested in the conversation.
Upon hearing about this conversation, Hubby's first question was "why would she know how Julius goes to the bathroom?" Well, I've come up with two probable explanations. In our house when one girl needs to go the bathroom, the other three suddenly need to use the facilities, too. I can only imagine what happens in a class of 16. At some point someone is going to open the door while another student is using the bathroom. My other thought is that during play time Julius may have simulated going to the bathroom (maybe they were playing house, who knows?) and it appeared that he had his hands near his belly button. All I know is that I made it through the conversation/explanation without passing out... and surely that has to count for something. Unfortunately, only Cakes was part of this conversation, so apparently I'm going to have to repeat it three more times.

10 comments:

LauraC said...

Ha! At our day care, there are ALWAYS kids going to the bathroom with the door open. I think I saw almost every kid in the 2s room with no pants on at some point, so clearly Nate and Alex saw them too. We had those conversations a long long time ago!

Quadmama said...

I'm actually surprised that we didn't have this conversation during preschool last year. I guess they were just to young to notice or care!

maryanne said...

We've had this discussion several times over the past 22 months...

Quadmama said...

I think the whole conversation was pretty easy... this time. I'm dreading the whole "where do babies come from?" speech.

Stephanie Barr said...

You think you'll only have it three more times. As if!

:)

When they get older, the conversations become much more complicated.

Quadmama said...

I'm just going to leave those conversations to Hubby. LOL! I can only imagine what would happen if I made him take care of those discussions!

Marilynne said...

You are right, of course, never tell the girls something that will cause you to backtrack later. If you tell them as much of the truth as they seem to want, they'll trust you to tell them the truth most of the time.

twinmamabee said...

Oh my...not looking forward to this conversation. You did a good job!

Quadmama said...

Everyone keeps warning me that the talks are just going to become more difficult. Yikes.

Roman and Tiffany said...

When I was dropping Ryla off at school one morning, a little boy came out of the bathroom with his pants down around his ankles asking the teacher to help him wipe his butt. Yea, the whole class got quite the show. :)

I'm sure bathroom time is not very private in a classroom of 3-4 year olds. Ryla hasn't asked anything about different body parts yet. But I'm sure it is coming.

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