Had to have "the talk".

As you may know, my daughter is a "tweenager", meaning she's not a little kid, but not technically a teenager yet. It's kind of an awkward phase when you think about it. Their bodies are starting to change, their friends are changing, everything around them is changing. At the same time, they haven't reached the "i know everything" teenager-y years either and although they don't like to admit it, they rely on their parents for guidance on things. As such, with all of these changes, there come a hefty amount of questions. With all of the exposure in the media about sex, I never quite know where she hears certain things. I don't try to sheild everything from her. I think most parents could knock themselves out trying to filter EVERYTHING their child sees and hears. I usually try to use the things she does see and hear as oppurtunities because it no doubt gets the questions rolling.

Last night was different though. We were riding in the car on the way to my cake decorating class and she asks me out of the blue...

"Mommy, is there more than one meaning for 'oral'?"

What to tell her...hmmm. I gave her my best Webster's dictionary answer..."of or having to do with the mouth". Obviously not the answer she was looking for...

"Can it mean sort of a bad thing too? Like that word I don't like to say?"

"You mean sex?"

"uh huh"

"Well yeah, I guess if you're talking about that...it could be bad"

"Mommy, what is oral sex?"

Why do I always get the tough questions?? I didn't know what to tell her here so I thought for a minute and decided that it wouldn't hurt anything by telling her the truth...but this is a PG-13 rated blog so I don't need to tell you what I told her. I will tell you her answer though...

"Ewwwwwwww!! Why would anyone do that???"

Ahhh, exactly the answer I was looking for. I'm no prude by any stretch of the definition, but FFS, she's only 10! So I have nothing to worry about yet.

She asked me a ton of other questions. It was as if she stored them up and made little notes to ask me about them at some point. I'm not really sure what spurred the little question and answer session last night but afterwards I felt really good and a little proud that she felt comfortable enough to ask me those questions instead of getting the answers from just anyone.