The Birds and the Bees

Last night I flopped down on Omega's bed, waiting for her to finish changing into her pajamas, brushing her teeth and going to the bathroom. 

 So, when she was ready she came and laid on top of me as if I were going to give her a piggy back ride only we're laying flat. Then she said something I wasn't quite ready for. She said, "Mommy, is this how Daddies fertilize Mommies?"
"Uh oh." I thought to myself, "Here it comes. The sex talk every parent dreads. And she's only 6!"
"No, not quite" I say.
"How do they fertilize then?" She asks, wanting an explanation.
I decide to refer to management. "Go ask Daddy" I say. So she goes to Daddy's office and asks him. He says, "Just like bees!"
"How do bees do it?"
"I'll tell you later."
She comes back into the room and repeats everything Daddy just said.
"I want youuuuuuu to tell me." She begged.
"I know! Let's play the guessing game! I'm thinking of something and you have to guess what it is." She fell for it. I successfully distracted her inquisitive mind toward other things.

I knew it would come some day. I just wasn't prepared for it to come last night! I knew information was accumulating in her brain and the puzzle pieces were coming together, but I wasn't comfortable yet giving her the fuller picture.

Having a garden has been helpful. The word fertilizer is common vocabulary in our home. Every year they help spread rock powder fertilizer on each bed. They understand that it gives nutrition to the soil so the plants grow better. Then about a month ago they helped me shake the corn and watched the pollen fall onto the tassles below. I explained that we were fertilizing the corn. The pollen that fell onto the tassels helped the corn to grow inside the husks. So the Daddy corn fertilized the mommy corn and it grew baby corn.

One time we went to say hi to the cows and Omega said, "I think that's a mommy one...but it's nurse spots (udders) look different." So I had to break it to her.
"Actually that one is a boy." I explained.
"What are those dangly things then?" She wondered.
"Well, those hold fertilizer to fertilize the mommy cows so they can have babies."
"Oh"
Then she turned excitedly to Orion and said, "Orion, there's fertilizer in there!"
I just smiled at their excitement in learning something new.

Then we got roosters for our chickens. Poor hens. They literally get raped several times a day. No courtship, no "look how handsome I am, ya wanna get together?" Nope. The hens practically run for dear life trying to get away and then the rooster jumps on top of them, nips their neck with his beak and bangs away for a couple of seconds and then gets off. The hen then tries to "shake it off" and runs away again. When it's monsoon season she walks away with mud caked to her chest and muddy foot prints on her back. One of our chickens was injured for two months and we kept it on our back porch. Once it was well enough to let out the poor thing got raped like 7 times in a matter of 2 minutes. The kids tried to rescue it a bunch. They felt sorry for her. The kids say that he was "roosting her."

 Then the kids saw grasshoppers on top of each other and they realized, "Oh, the daddy is fertilizing the mommy." Hence, their conclusion that human mommies and daddies do the same. 


Last Friday we watched a video about the human body and of course they had to put a snippet in about reproduction. They showed how sperm swims into an egg and grows into a baby. Omega was sitting next to me and asks, "Mommy, what are those?"
I said, "They're like tadpoles that have to fertilize the mommy's egg so it can become a baby." That seemed to suffice her curiosity. (We have tadpoles that are growing into frogs currently in their little kiddie pool so the whole tadpole thing was very familiar to them right now).

So all of these together led up to the grand finale question she asked last night. I felt like it was just the other day that I was listening to "Let the Children Come Along the Innocent Way" and reading "Reflections of Moral Innocence: Learning to Communicate Sexual Knowledge with Dignity." By Gary and Anne Ezzo. I guess time has flown! Before I know it they'll be asking me about birth control!