Front Privates

On Saturday night, I was simultaneously cooking dinner for Diana and bathing the boys.  Which involves occasionally popping in on them to make sure they weren’t holding each other’s heads under the water.

I was chopping mushrooms when I heard Elijah shout for me.  I leaned into the bathroom and he said, “Daddy, did you put your front privates into mommy’s front privates?”

It’s hard to describe the feeling that came over me at that instant.  It was as if someone poured quick drying cement into my brain.  I could no longer think or speak or remember what a mushroom was.

“Guh?”  I managed to squeak out.

“Did you put your front privates into mommy’s front privates and then part of you and mommy became me?”

A memory made its slow journey through my cemented head.  Diana mentioned getting cornered into telling Elijah the birds and bees recently after a lawyerly barrage of questions.

A part of me wanted to redirect the conversation into the magical world of storks.  Or maybe I could tell him babies are delivered by X-Wing fighters or Ninjas.  But I figured that would be worse in the long run.

“Yep.  That’s how you got into mommy’s tummy.”  I looked at Luca to make sure he was ignoring the conversation.  He was concerned with his own front privates.

“I can’t wait to put my front privates into someone else’s front privates.”

“Okay.  Well.  Here’s the thing.  This whole front privates thing is something we can talk about here at home, but you can’t talk about this with kids in your class.  Their moms and dads might not want them to know about the whole front privates thing and I won’t want to get sued.”

I got them both out of bed and we read “Harry Potter.”  Which, at least for the two chapters, did not mention front privates.