That S-word.

The Princess (my 5-year-old daughter) has been exhibiting some curiosity about some things. You might remember this post, where I employed classic distraction techniques to smoothly avoid the "how are babies made" question.

Folks? It's getting worse. I blame TV. And school. And billboards. And music.

Awhile back she heard and retained the word "sex" from somewhere. She asked what it was. I reached into my vast mental catalog of parenting wisdom and tried to be "honest but age-appropriate" and "literal" and "tell her the truth but no more than she's explicitly asking for." Ummm. So I told her that when a man and a woman love each other and get married (yeah, that's right), sex is a special way for them to show their love, kind of like hugging and kissing but different, and more private, and it's only for grownups.

Her reply: "Is that when grownups take off their clothes and kiss NAKED?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

"What? Where did you hear that?"

"Mom. I saw it on TV one time."

Look, we are not watching HBO with her or anything, and we're actually very careful about what she watches. But yeah, I guess, really, scenes like that, or scenes which are clearly leading up to that, appear almost everywhere these days, right? The word sex and images relating to it are rampant in our society. And my little girl? She's smart. She's very, very observant, and very, very verbal. She gets what words mean and uses context clues to fill in the holes. She associates words with images and actions and she puts it all together.

So, yes. I told her the truth. "Yes. It involves two grownups who are in love and married taking their clothes off."

"Gross."

And that was the end of that.

Until yesterday.

"Mom? Remember that s-word, the one that's private and not for kids to say?"

"....you mean sex?"

"Yeah."

"What about it?"

"What IS that? I mean what do grownups DO when they do sex?"

"......"

"Mom?"

"Why do you want to know this?"

"I don't know. I just want to know."

"Was somebody talking about it to you?"

"No. Well, Freddy in my class has been singing a song with that word in it."

"What song?"

"I'm not supposed to say that word! It's not for kids!"

"It's ok to say it to me. You can say it and I won't be mad. How does the song go?"

She eyed me suspiciously for a moment and then rolled her eyes and said, "I'm sexy and I know it. You MADE me say it!"

"Oh. Ok. I know that song. But why did that make you ask me these questions?"

"I just remembered that word and I remembered you told me it was private and something grownups do but I don't understand what they DO."

"Maybe you don't need to understand what they do just yet."

"Mom. Just tell me, ok?"

Sigh. Honestly? I felt we'd reached the point of no return. I don't want to give her the idea that sex is dirty or shameful. I also don't want to wait until the porn-saturated society she lives in fills her head with ideas about sex. I want her first impressions of sex to come from me, so she can remember it as a normal, natural, beautiful thing that is waiting for her to enjoy when she grows up. 

I think back to history and realize that 100, 200 years ago? Kids knew all about sex. They saw animals do it. They shared bedrooms with their parents. It was part of life. 

Today our kids are insulated from these "normal" aspects of sex, but overly exposed to commercialization and exploitative images of sex; raunchiness becomes their framework for what is normal. Sex isn't what I don't want her to be exposed to; it's the corruption and cheapening of it that happens in our culture. 

So I believe it's my job to normalize it and set a foundation that might help to combat the information she's going to come up against as she grows up.

So.

I told her.

I told her exactly what happens, in the simplest and most basic terms. When she asked "why" anybody would EVER do something like that, I told her that it's how God designed us, and how we make babies (which then led to a brief explanation of "eggs" and "seeds"), and yes, I told her we do it because it feels nice.

She asked if I'd ever done that with her father. I said yes. "When?" she asked. I hesitated. "For sure before you and Monster were born, of course." 

"No, I mean when? At night when I'm asleep?"

"Oh. Well, yes." 

"In your BED?"

"Yes..." Now, I admit, I'm starting to feel weird about this line of questioning.

"Oh."

And then she was satisfied, and the conversation was over. 

And I felt a little sad that my baby has reached this moment in her life. And a little apprehensive that maybe she really is too young to know these things. But mostly I felt relieved, and a little proud. I felt like I'd handled it the way I always wanted to handle it. Calmly, rationally, with no shame or guilt or embarrassment. I stressed that it's for grownups, and it's private, and she doesn't need to talk to anybody else about it and if somebody tries to talk to HER about it, she should tell me.  But that she can always come to Mommy and ask questions, and I will always answer them.

What do you think? How old were your kids when you told them the facts of life? And did I do ok??

Linking up today with Yeah Write #41 (formerly LoveLinks)

I've been duped into making a new year's resolution.

In a post-Christmas daze, the O.G. and I made two rather ambitious purchases:

1. Xbox Kinect.

This was ostensibly for the Princess, who does love to play Fruit Ninja, wherein she can jump and flail and karate chop like a maniac, splattering digital fruit all over the television screen, and Kinectimals, wherein she can befriend, train, pet, and play with a digital tiger or bear cub.

His name is Nemo.

This is all well and good. But then I went and bought Dance Central 2, because I'd been told it was "fun."  This is a direct quote.

2. An elliptical.

Now. I should clarify that my husband bought the elliptical. For himself. Some kind of get-in-shape New Year's resolution or something. I made no such resolution. I never made any promises to work out on said elliptical, or to refrain from sitting on the couch eating ice cream and watching The Bachelor in my Snuggie while he works out on said elliptical. These terms were understood by all parties prior to the purchase of the elliptical.

But then I went and bought Dance Central 2. Because I'd been told. It was fun.

And somehow Dance Central 2 became some kind of weapon between us. He would get up off the couch and announce he was going to "work out," and look pointedly at my unopened Dance Central 2 box.

"What?" I'd say. "I don't feel like playing that right now. The Bachelor is on."

"You bought it, you'd better play it."

"I will! When I'm in the mood."

"You don't see me saying I'm not in the mood for the elliptical, do you?"

"What? Shut up and go work out. I'll play the stupid game. I promise."

What's his problem? How are the elliptical and Dance Central 2 even related? I mean, he bought that thing to get in shape. I bought mine because it's a game. Because I was told it was fun. What's with the pressure and the guilt?

After a few nights of this routine, I put Dance Central 2 in the Xbox and got myself ready for some fun. I did two songs. It was slow going. I'm not a Fly Girl, ok? I'm just a 30-year-old white mother of two with an Xbox Kinect. I own a Snuggie. And I use it. Often. I am not up for any hip hop awards. OK?

But I went through the step-by-step tutorial modes, learning the moves one at a time, then dancing the songs to the best of my ability. It felt...familiar. Kind of...like I'd done this before. Oh, the top 40 soundtrack was new, the hip cartoon street dancers were new.

I'm looking at you, white girl. You call those moves? 

But the basic experience...

Holy. Crap.

I'm doing a freaking aerobics video. 

And I promised to keep doing it.  Regularly.

What just happened??




Now linking up with Lovelinks #40.

Now a prize-winning post, due to my fabulous comments and the (totally respectful) way I smacked down my own mother in said comments:

Why Chicks Dig Hockey

1. Hockey players are gentlemen. No, I'm serious. Non-fans have the impression that hockey is, as Ilana from Mommy Shorts put it to me recently, "known for ugliness and low blows." As a hockey fan, I don't see that at all!

The truth is fighting is a part of the game, and it's done according to an unwritten code. Nobody's a victim here. These are two grown men who know what sport they're playing, and hockey fights are fully mutual (and closely refereed). The normal gameplay of hockey is intensely physical and fights are a natural extension of that.

This is a rough, physical game, a game coursing with full-on testosterone, and fights generally serve a purpose. Guys fight to avenge a foul, defend a wronged teammate, intimidate or rattle the other team, or just get their own team's blood pumping and the guys riled up. It takes energy to play this game for 60 minutes, maybe more than any other sport. The fights keep that energy going.

2. Hockey is exciting. It's fast-paced, it's constant action, it never stops. Not like those stupid lumbering football players with their one. play. at. a. time. And don't even get me started on baseball. Basketball is ok in this regard but it's still no hockey.

3. Hockey is beautiful. It is! Come on, girls. First of all, it's done in a nicely chilled room, so while they definitely sweat, it's not that hot baked-on stinky sweat that other sports cause. Plus, we love ice skating, right? It's elegant, it's graceful. Look at these guys on the ice. They fly. They're like figure skaters if figure skaters were burly men with five o'clock shadows and black eyes.

4. Hockey players love the game. I'm not much of a football, basketball, or baseball fan, but it seems like every time I turn around some big athlete is getting blasted by the press for his ego, his greed, his generally bad behavior. Sportswriters lament the players' loss of the "love of the game" when they start making their millions and gathering their entourages. It becomes a business, and they become celebrities. 

You don't see that as much in hockey. I don't mean you don't see it at all, but it doesn't seem to be the focus as much as it is in other sports. There's a certain humility about these guys that seems to get lost in other athletes. When you watch a hockey game you have a real feeling that these guys are having fun. Yeah, they're doing a job, and yeah, most of them are being paid, well, a lot more than I am. But man do they enjoy every minute of it.

5. Hockey is sexy. Ahem. These are men out there, ladies. Big, strong, rough and tough men. They carry around big sticks and knock each other around. They're fast and muscular and they often look like they haven't shaved all week. They get in fights and punch each other in the well-defined, sturdy jaw without ever losing their rakish grins. They're boyish and they're manly and if it were up to you to repopulate the earth with strong, healthy babies and you had to choose the best breeding stock out there, let's face it, you'd choose a hockey player.

Brent Burns. *sigh*

Do the Dew. Unless you don't want to dissolve from the inside out. I'm on the fence.

So. I'm innocently surfing Twitter and the lovely Alyssa Milano tweets this:

Look, I've read all the stories about putting a tooth in a cup of Coke and it disappears in 48 hours or whatever. I get it. Soda is battery acid. Whatevs. My problem with this story is the marketing.

In short: Guy claims to have found a mouse in his Mountain Dew, wants some cash from Pepsi to compensate him for the trauma. And we're not talking millions, here. He wants $50,000, you guys. That's all he's asking. Peanuts.

Still, Pepsi doesn't want to admit defeat and lose $50,000 if there really was no mouse, right? No. They want to prove there was no mouse. And don't worry! Pepsi and their multimillion dollar PR team have got this one, y'all. Oh man, this is so good. This guy thinks he can mess with Pepsi? Oh no he didn't. So they gather all their marketing gurus and Harvard lawyers and prepare the following water-tight defense:

"Nuh-UH! A mouse would dissolve instantly in Mountain Dew! Animal flesh and bone cannot even HANDLE the Dew; animal flesh and bone exposed to the Dew would turn into jelly in a matter of weeks. So we submit that there is no way you found a recognizable mouse in that can! Oh, SNAP." [high fives all around]

Sigh.

Come on, Pepsi. Help a girl out. I've stuck with you through the High-Fructose Corn Syrup scandal, the "Mountain Dew causes infertility" rumors. I'm addicted committed to your fine bubbly neon yellow hyper-caffeinated beverage and I'm really trying to stick with it. I want to keep Doing the Dew. I'm giving it all I've got here but you've gotta throw me a bone.

I'm thinking maybe...maybe...a better approach would've been, "Oh, dude. A mouse? Gross. We are so sorry. That was a freak factory accident; that never happens. Here's your 50K. And a lifetime supply of delicious, non-mouse-containing, nontoxic, noncorrosive Mountain Dew! Have a nice day."

This is why Pepsi should pay me a lot of money to do their marketing.

Cubicle.

I moved. Yesterday I said I was moving? I moved.

Here's where I work now:

cubicle

View of the office from my seat. It's a jungle and I'm invisible. RIGHT??

The view out the window. Collegiate, yes?

The cubicle is large. And open. Very open. But my back is to a wall, and I'm in the corner of the suite, so there's that. Here's my building. The big dark blue part in the middle is the lobby. 120 is the Admissions Office. 140, 150, 160 are different departments. I moved from the 160 suite to the 150:

 So. That's what's going on with me. It's all very dramatic, I know.

And how's your week going?

I'm being downgraded.

I work in an office. It's an office suite at a university, in the administration building. My own private office has a window. And a door. A door I can shut whenever I want to:

See?

I'm being moved from my office to a...a cubicle. In the suite next door. It's a long boring story but it's happening. I'm supposed to be out this week. All my belongings are in boxes around me and my phone line has already been transferred to the cubicle. But my computer is still here and I can't quite bring myself to unplug it and take it next door.

Here's my office as it stands now:

Yes, that is supposed to read "product," not "produce." No, I am not going back into Photoshop to fix it.

Honestly I've kind of been looking forward to this move on some levels. A change of scenery, a new outlook. I'm getting some new job duties along with it and I'm excited about those (it's not an actual demotion or anything, just a physical move). I'll have better front-office support in my new location and won't have to worry about things like (blech) speaking to university students and answering phones (OK look, if I'm being totally honest, I don't really do this stuff now...it's possible if you call this office when I'm the only one here your call will go to voicemail.* I'm trusting you guys not to rat me out on that one, ok? But, you know, in spite of my pretty consistent failure to perform, there's still some weird and persistent expectation that I might actually answer phones when pressed to do so...people are constantly telling me things like "I'm going to lunch, you're covering," as if they've never even met me. So I feel I must be covert in my determination to avoid the ringing phones at all costs, and that pressure will be gone, which will be a relief).

And the cubicle isn't terrible, as cubicles go. It's ginormous. It also has a large window, 3 windows south of my current window, so basically the same view. It's in a suite with people I work with and like. And it's not like I'm doing anything weird in my office that I can't do in a cubicle. I mean, I don't strip down and take naps under the desk or anything, even when the door is shut. Usually.*

But I worked a lot of hard years to earn this office, to battle my way from cubicle hell to office paradise. I don't like to answer phones now because I was the phone-answerer forever before I was promoted into my current position. I've paid my dues. I love my office. So it's kind of a cruel irony that staying in my fancy office means I would have to continue pretending to care about the phones, and moving to a horrible open cubicle means I wouldn't have to worry about them anymore. Where's the logic in that?

Not that I have a choice. I'm moving.

So this is possibly my last post from my office, you guys.

I know what you're thinking. How am I going to blog at work when I'm in a cubicle?? Well, don't worry. My monitor has a privacy screen, and I'll arrange myself in that cubicle so nobody can sneak up on me. Plus, of course, I NEVER BLOG AT WORK! Come on, you guys. Only on my lunch break. Seriously.

Speaking of lunch breaks, mine is almost here* over.  Gotta go.


*If my boss is reading this...I'm joking! About everything. Absolutely everything you read here is a joke. I LOVE MY JOB AND MY NEW CUBICLE AND I WORK VERY, VERY HARD WITHOUT CEASING.

Things I want to make Angela say out loud: Stateside edition

I know, I've been M.I.A. for far too long. Here are my excuses: I'm sick. My kid got me sick. The little one. The one who pushes his snotty little face up against mine and demands kisses. And like a sucker I comply. And then I get sick.

Before I got sick, I was unplugged for awhile because Angela (you remember Angela, don't you?) was here! She flew all the way from Australia to be with me (ok, and her family or whatever, but mostly ME) for the holidays! So I was busy last week packing a year's worth of fun, memories, and stupid inside jokes into FIVE. AMAZING. DAYS. And I think we did a pretty good job, because we're awesome like that.

She has friends all over the state so she did a tour of California (it takes some time, east coasters!), but obviously I'm the greatest and most important of all her friends so I got a whole week of her time before she headed to the Bay Area where her parents live. Now she's with her family for Christmas, and she goes back Down Under on the 27th (let me know if you need flight numbers or anything, stalkers).

She brought my children many presents, including some book about a wombat or something. No, it's not a wombat, it's a possum. She threatened to bring some Australian "childhood classic" called Wombat Stew wherein a number of animals posing as friendly neighbors gang up and poison a wombat or something.

OK wait...I just read the Amazon description and it actually sounds quite lovely and cute. What is wrong with you, Angela? Why did you tell me these animals were ganging up to poison the wombat when they were actually saving him? I worry about you, I really do.

Well, possibly she's been traumatized by my reaction to the book she bought my child years ago, "Love You Forever" (creepiest. book. ever.), and is terrified to bring anything even hinting of controversy into my home. Wise move. So the one she brought is not Wombat Stew, it's actually about a possum. Possum Magic. It's a cute story. And I guess a slightly more normal animal; we have possums here.  Or are they opossums? I really don't know. Or care. Moving on.

So now my daughter is fully educated regarding the wildlife of Australia. Wombats, possums, kangaroos, koalas, emus, kookaburras, tasmanian devils (evidently they don't actually spin around like tornadoes), dingoes (don't worry, I warned her that they eat babies).

Sugar gliders look terrifying. Also? An echidna looks suspicously like a porcupine.

Yeah. Apparently that's a wombat. Some kind of furry pig? I don't know. It doesn't look particularly appetizing to me.

Angela also brought my 5-year-old...a boomerang. A "Genuine Australian Returning Boomerang."

"Guarantee to return...when thrown correctly." 

It's winter here (not like in backwards Australia, where it's inexplicably summer), so we haven't actually ventured outside to attempt to "throw correctly" this boomerang. I'll let you know how that goes, though. Possibly one or both of my children are about to die. I don't trust inanimate objects that come back to you when you throw them.

So. It's been awhile since I did "Things I want to make Angela say out loud," right? I think it's about time for another installment.

We'll call this the Stateside Edition. Don't worry, Aussies (Roz, Lizzie, Triona, I'm talking to you. I know you're reading this, because I am an international phenomenon) (Yes, I know Triona isn't an Aussie but whatever. If you want me to think of you as Irish you may need to come visit me and prove your Irishness. It'll be fun! I bake!). Maybe I'll do another Aussie edition for you after she returns.

If she returns. I'm still holding out hope that she'll change her mind and stay, frankly.

So.


Things I want to make Angela say out loud, stateside edition:

(With feeling, please, Ang. And I realize your tradition is to read this to your housemates and they're not around right now, so you can read to your mom or somebody. Just read it out loud. Humor me.)

1. Australia sucks. I'm staying right here. 
2. You know what? American peanut butter is SO MUCH BETTER than that junk they sell in Australia. I LOVE American peanut butter. I think I'll just stay home and eat it for the rest of my life.*
3. Hey, girl. You want a toothpick?**
4. I've lived in Australia for two years of my life and I still cannot even come close to faking an Australian accent. Obviously I'm a failure and there's no point to living there anymore. Guess I'll just stay home.
5. Ryan Gosling? Is he that guy from The Notebook? Yeah, he's not really my type.
6. There are no Chili's fried cheese sticks in Australia. LAME. I'm staying in the good old U.S. of A. where they know how to do appetizers.
7. It's DECAFFEINATED.**
8. I'm totally planning to bring a bomb on the plane back to Australia, so they should probably just put me on the no-fly list now and save everybody a lot of trouble. Yeah I said it. BOMB. On a PLANE. Bomb ba bomb bomb bomb! Seriously. No-fly list. I belong on it.

*You guys, she still totally hates peanut butter. That's why it's still funny. 

**This one is probably only funny to me. I'm ok with that.