The Birds and The Bees

Sorry I have been neglecting you my friends. Seriously though, between baseball games, practices, tournaments and end of the year team parties.....I have about 2 hours of the week left to myself! It has finally ended for Brooklyn and her Bulls softball team and Madden and his Reds T-ball team. So now we are focusing on Dallas and getting him ready to head to Georgia with his All Star team. 4 days a week....10 hours of practice....I might as well install a cot in the dugout and call it home, since I'm at the field more than I'm at my real home!

But in between those baseball hours we are home and finishing up the school year. A month or so ago Brooklyn brought home from school a note for the parents, telling us that a Personal Health and Body Lesson was going to be taught in the classroom. There wasn't much more info on it, so being the crazy mom that I am, I immediately emailed her teacher to find out what exactly was going to be taught to my little naive 5th grader. She wrote back informing me that a parent information night was coming up and everything would be explained then. So I marked it on my calender and shuffled kids around that evening so that I could make it to this info session.

Now, I may be 34 years old. I may have given birth to 3 children. But get me in a room with strangers, looking at pictures of sperm and eggs travelling down the fallopian tube and talking out loud about vagina's and the penis...I start breaking out in hives. Normally, this stuff doesn't bother me and I'll be the first to talk about vagina's...actually I think I did talk a lot about mine in this post...but when I think about having to talk out loud about this stuff to my daughter, the itchiness and blotches start.

So the info session was OK. They brake it down into 5 1 hour classes. Boys and girls separated. And it starts with puberty, goes into the male anatomy, then the female anatomy, menstruation, and then BAM....straight into talk about AIDS. Whoa....back up some. Is there any information taught about sexual intercourse, how babies are created or how AIDS can be passed onto others, other than through blood transfusions. NOPE. I guess they have to guess, or the best answer....Go Ask Your Parents.

So overall I'm OK with what she is going to learn in this class. But for the most part, she already knows this stuff. Its the actual baby making act that she knows nothing about, and quite frankly I'd rather her not know. But since she is going into middle school next year, I feel I need to educate her on this before her classes in school starts, so she's not sitting in her desk confused as ol' hell.

I don't remember my parents sitting me down and talking to me about this. I do remember a very graphic book that mom gave me to read and I very vividly remember my father...who also happened to be my 6th grade teacher....teaching the 6th grade girls all about this. Oh how I wanted to die from humiliation. I slumped down as far as I could in my desk....in the back of the class....as far away from my dad and his pointer stick....pointing to the slide show of vagina's and penis'. He should have realized my uncomfortableness and asked to teach the boys. But he didn't and that's how I learned.

Shaw is the P.E. teacher at his elementary school in Tampa and he also teaches this class to his 5th graders. So I pleaded with him to take his vast knowledge of this subject and to enlighten our daughter. He laughed in my face. So with that, I drove over to Borders and bought a book called It's So Amazing. Seriously, a fabulous book. Funny and to the point. I was busting a gut curled up the children's section of Borders reading this book. Bought the book and drove home, giving myself a little pep talk the whole way home, You can do it, you can do it!!!

I walk in the door and Brooklyn is all ready for bed curled up, reading a funny Judy Moody book. I ask her if she would like to read a better book than that!!! Haha. She looks up skeptically. So I start with my prepared speech about the lessons that are coming up in school and she puts her hands over her ears and like a little 5 year old says 'lalalalala....I can't hear you'! This is starting off great! So I pull her hands down and tell her if she doesn't hear me out, then I'll have to get her father in here to read the book out loud to her! That quickly gets her attention. So I show her the book and how its broken down and I tell her to read away.

I keep peeking around her door frame and she seems to be totally engrossed. Every once in awhile I holler out...'Got any questions'? and she hollers back...'Nope, I'm Good'!!! Phew, this is going better than I thought. Then I hear....'Mom, I got a question'. Oh crap. 'So does the mans penis actually go into the vagina'? Nothing like getting right to the point and there I stand rooted to the floor. The one question that has haunted me since the day I gave birth to her. 'Um, yup....it actually does'. 'And does it hurt or feel good'? Oh good lord, shoot me now. I can't even tell you what I answered her with because there was a lot of stuttering and incoherent mumbles. I wanted to tell her it hurts like hell and to run as fast and as far as you can when that time comes. But I didn't.

So she finally gets to the end of the book and aside from a few other questions about homosexuals and the XY chromosomes that determine the gender....we were DONE. So now she is all knowledgeable and I'm breathing a sigh of relief. That is until it comes time to teach Dallas all about it...But I still have a few more years before the toture begins again.

I'm not sure who gave this subject the term 'Birds and the Bees'. It should be called 'The Monsters and the Goblins' because that is some scary stuff right there.