the tinyblog

I was telling Paula in chat that this would be the first time my mom had read some of these stories. I'm not going to say exactly how many exclamation points she put on the end of "YOUR MOTHER READS YOUR BLOG" but it was a fair amount.

Anyway, not only does my mom read, but she offers this contribution, to clear up the record about how our conversation went when I was but a young lad of 8:

Daniel was eight, just out of the hospital where he had spent 30 days in traction for a broken femur. He was to spend the next six weeks in a body cast at home. That left him with a great deal of time for reflection. One day he said, "Mom, I've been thinking.", a sure sign of trouble. "I know what everything on my body is for except that sac between my legs. I asked my nurse in the hospital but she told me to ask you." I took a deep breath and began to explain in what I deemed to be eight year old terms, how while women carried half of the baby seed in their tummys and men carried the other half in that sac. I then proceeded to explain how those two halfs were connected. I told him that when a couple was ready to make a baby that the man put his penis in the woman's vagina and his body squirted sperm into the woman and that is how a baby begins life. I was very clinical because I knew that if I made it sound like too much fun Dan would want to try it right away.

Dan looked at me then in the way kids look at parents, trying to picture their Mom and Dad doing this. He gave up that contemplation immediately and got back to his practical considerations. I asked if he had any questions and he said he had a few. His questions were, "How do you know when you are going to squirt so that you get it in the right place in time?" I assured him that he would have ample warning but also cautioned him about being careless in this so that he didn't make a baby before he was ready to be a Dad. Then, contemplating the size of his eight year old equipment, "How many squirts do you get in your life?" "What happens if you use it all up before you make a baby?" I assured him that he would have plenty because the body manufactures all that he would need. He seemed satisfied by this and just said, "OK, thanks Mom." and that was it until he got older and needed the birth control talk and the personal responsibility talk.