You take the good you take the bad you take them both and there you have...

Have I mentioned how much I love the library? Books, movies, music -- all you want and all for free.  Unless you are a late returner which we are from time to time. But that's not what today's post is about, really.

I went to the library to get several books about how to talk to children about the birds and the bees, the facts of life...SEX... because of my work.

In my job, I teach youth with disabilities about their bodies, appropriate touch, sexuality, healthy relationships and dating.  I teach a variance of these skills to youth ages 5-25.  Because of this experience, as of late, I have been asked to talk to PARENTS about how to talk to their kids about sex.  Now, get me in front of a room full of five-year-olds to talk about body parts? No problem.  Take a dating, hormonal, sexually experimenting group of teenagers and ask me to talk to them? No problem.  But parents?  THAT makes me nervous.  But I have now done two such presentations and they both went awesome. 

Last one I did, I had all these wonderfully illustrated age-appropriate books to pass around.  It's a touchy subject (no pun intended) so in my workshop, I told the group a story:

Coen had been asking me all about eggs and how babies are made in side of eggs. (We were reading the trumpet of the swan)  Well, that led to baby eggs and I told him about the sperm and egg and all of that without too many of the real particulars of sex, per se.  He seemed satisfied with all that so I tucked him into bed and kissed him goodnight.  Well, he must have pondered overnight because in the morning when Tad went to get him up (I had not told Tad about our previous conversation, having forgotten about it), Coen said..."But Daddy. How did you GET the sperm inside of Mommy?" 

Tad didn't answer, quite taken off guard.  It was a school day and he told him it was a long story and he'd explain later.  He hadn't asked again for a year.  And so I told the group I couldn't WAIT for him to ask again, because I was ready.

Well, be careful what you wish for indeed!  He asked me last week. Suddenly, I didn't feel so ready, but I told him.  I still had those library books and we read them together.  We had a great conversation. I showed him pictures of myself pregnant with him and pictures of him after he was born.  He seemed to think the whole sex act was a physical impossibility and that's fine with me.   I told him that it was really only something that grown ups do.

Whew.  Thanks Public Library.