The letter from school.
The letter from school explaining how they were going to be having the girls and boys and puberty presentation.
Oh boy. I was NOT ready for this already. Didn't I just bring this kid home from the hospital? Wasn't he JUST learning how to walk and swing on the swings by himself? Wasn't it just yesterday that he took off the water floaties and swam in the deep end all by himself? Damn it if we're not talking about puberty already. So I prepared myself.
Just weeks earlier, he had caught us in the act of sneaking the money under the pillow for the tooth fairy. We were found out. Although, he didn't ask any other questions, I'm sure it's coming. My boy is not a baby anymore. He's in this in-between area, stuck between boy and dude.
So he came home from school that day and didn't say anything about the puberty presentation. He must have said something to Dalai Dad and so I was curious what they talked about.
"How was school today?" I cautiously asked.
"Fine."
"Anything exciting happen?"
"No."
"Did they talk about the puberty stuff today?"
"Yeah.....they gave me a BROchure."
Just like that. He said "BROchure." I tried not to die laughing. How fitting that he would interpret the hand-out that they gave him as the "BROchure."
"Oh, cool." I said. "Did you learn anything new? Anything you didn't know before?"
"No. Not really. I'm gonna get hairy underarms and stuff."
"Cool."
And away he went. Into his room, leaving the BROchure sitting on the table.
Curious, I picked it up and started reading. It had the usual stuff...your body is going through changes, yada, yada, yada. You will be getting taller, your voice will change, your shoulders will get broader, you will get armpit hair and more body hair. You will experience erections. YIKES! The BROchure had a diagram of a penis. This was heavy duty stuff for my baby who had just found out about the Tooth Fairy!
As he emerged from his room, he caught me reading the BROchure. "MOM! You can't look at that!" he shouted at me as he ripped it from my hands.
"Why not? I wanted to know what you guys talked about today."
"Well, because. You can't be reading the BROchure! It's for dudes!"
"Well, it's fine. I know all about the stuff in that BROchure anyways. It's not new information to me."
"What? How do you know about all the stuff in the BROchure?"
I thought for a minute...."Because I'm a teacher. And teachers have to learn about that stuff when they are doing child development classes and stuff. It's ok."
"Oh, ok. But just don't be looking at my BROchure anymore, okay?" He stomps off back to his room taking the BROchure with him.
And that was that. The BROchure showed up, made everything awkward and now he knows that I know all about penises. Why does parenting have to be so complicated?
He and Dalai Dad had a good father/son camp out this weekend and hopefully they had a chance to talk about any dude stuff that, obviously, moms aren't supposed to know about.
If you enjoyed this post check out Dalai Mama on Facebook and Twitter!
No comments:
Post a Comment