It wasn’t long after little brothers entered the picture before potty breaks and diaper changes made the differences in, um, male and female plumbing, apparent. This topic seems to be a non-issue in families with both daughters and sons. I knew it was a conversation we'd have sooner or later. I wasn't so much that we deliberately avoided it, but in our home of all girls and a modest man, it just never came up.
Fast forward to Haiti. Judging by the confused, curious, concerned looks on the girls’ faces as we changed J’s diaper and put on HM’s swim trunks, it was clear that a short, simple, honest, direct, matter-of-fact, anatomy lesson was in order. No big deal. What we hadn’t anticipated the challenge of maintaining our composure in responding to the observations and questions that followed (you’ll have to guess who said what):
“ALL boys? Are you saying even DADDY has one of those nose things?”
“Actually, I’ve known for a long time that O and A (their boy cousins) had extra parts on their vaginas.”
“Is it peNIS or peaNUTS? I heard (boy in her class) call his fanny his nuts once.”
“It’s a really awkward body part, isn’t it?”
“So people are just like animals. The boys have longer privates and the girls have longer eyelashes.”
“I wish I had a penis. It’d be fun to be able to stand up and go potty, especially in nasty bathrooms.”
It must have been our destiny to venture into that territory on that particular day. Had it not happened in our room, we surely would have had some explaining to do when we wandered out to the pool and were joined a bunch of UN troops spending their leave day at our resort. We were soon surrounded by a crowd buff European military men—sporting SPEEDOS! The girls’ reactions were classic:
M- “Um, those swimsuits are T.M.I!”
A- (dramatic sigh and eyeroll) “Well NOW I’ve seen EVERYthing!”
K- “MANS in PANTIES?!?!?!?”
Lord have mercy.
Just catching up on how the adoption is coming along. It's so nice you are able to visit and bring the girls along. This post was hilarious!!!!! Blessings!
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