THE TALK

Well, I did it...I had "The Talk" with my daughters. I knew this would be the summer it would have to be done. My oldest daughter (10 1/2) is starting 5th grade this year (well really, this week) and she'll be watching the Health video and I knew I wanted to talk to her before that, so I did it. I also ended up talking to my youngest daughter (almost 9) too, because I knew that the info she got from her big sister would be a little confusing, so I talked to them together. We were on the way to Target when the "sex" questions started...I wasn't exactly prepared. I just prayed and thought that I would just answer questions until they stopped asking. I wasn't sure exactly how far the questions would go, but I would just let the questions and conversations dictate how far into the explanation we'd end up going. The answer to that is...ALL THE WAY! Now, I need to give a little background...most of my closest friends know this, but it does need to be explained for this topic. I've always been a mom who has used the atomically correct words when talking about our body parts...we don't have nicknames or say things like "front bottom and back bottom". An elbow is an elbow...you get it. Most of my friends cannot stand it; which to be totally honest probably just encourages me to say it more...but I digress... So I started to answer the questions and really talked a lot about sex being a gift from God meant for marriage...Adam and Eve...How the world will try to tell us things that are different, but we need to look at what God's Word tells us. It was really an amazing conversation. They were interested, appropriate, and kept the conversation going. I used as little actual explanation as was necessary and then if they asked a specific question or needed details I would fill in the blank...at some point my oldest daughter looked puzzled and then asked me the question I was dreading the most...and I quote from her, "But, where does the hotdog go?" and I answered her as with as much grace as I could muster on the spot..."Into the bun." Not my proudest moment, but she got the point. The conversation progressed and was met with all the expected "EWWW" and "That's Gross!"... All the way to how mommy got pregnant and that's where babies come from! Whew! I told my husband later that day that I had "the talk" with the girls...he said that he knew, our oldest had told him and that she was planning to adopt!

J