I Have All the Answers

In a perfect world, my children would give me written notice of any hard questions they will be asking, 24 hours in advance. That way, I would have time to craft the perfect, honest-yet-age-appropriate answer. Instead, they zing one at me and I go "Uh, uh, uh, uh..." before stammering out something that may or may not answer the question.

Today alone, I have been asked:
1. What exactly are all the parts of the vagina?
2. What is sexual abuse?
3. What happens when all the people in town die? (I can only assume this has something to do with a zombie apocalypse. I am so damned tired of these zombie questions.)
4. When you and Daddy die, where would we go and live?
5. If you get really sick and the doctor can't make you better and you go to the hospital and they can't make you all better, before you die do you turn all green and yucky? (Again with the zombies?)

The last one is the only one I managed to answer without hesitation.

Last week I tackled lesbians, meth, and why boys get to pee standing up.

It has always been our policy to be honest, or as honest as we can be. The Husband wants no part in talking about lady business, so conversations about vaginas and boobies and babies fall squarely on my shoulders. So when Katie came home and told us that someone had kicked her in the nuts, it was up to me to set her straight.

"Honey, you don't have nuts."
"Well, what are nuts?"
"You know testicles? Testicles are nuts. Sometimes boys also call them balls."
"WHAT?"
 

Little truths are mind blowing when you're small.

The older they get, the harder the questions, and the grayer the answers. Conversations now often contain phrases like "we believe" or "I think". Sometimes we can give the facts and lay out a truth, and sometimes we just have to build a foundation and let them reach their own conclusions.

This parenting gig - it's a breeze.