Birds and Bees

It's wayyyyyyyy too early to have to think about things like discussing the reproductive process with my just barely 6 1/2 year old daughter. I don't want my  little girl thinking about sex until well after she is married. It is, after all, strictly for the purposes of creating children, right? And all really smart folk make their parents proud by following the proper order of things: first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.

Right????

[the hypocrite is clearing throat of foot in mouth]

I'll just keep her sheltered in a little bubble of naivete until she's walked down the isle in a pretty white dress with a shimmering bejeweled veil over her almond eyed-face and a bouquet of wildflowers in her hand (each one unique and special).

But public school children talk... the radio serenades... and television blasts with conversations about S-E-X far too often for me to keep the bubble intact. It tore a bit a few weeks ago. It burst last week on Friday.

I initially managed to convince Chi that sex was something that only married adults did. That it was kinda yucky and I didn't want to talk about it. Apparently, though, someone else did continue talking, so Chi decided to inquire further about the validity of what she'd heard.

The conversation went like this:

"Ma, is kissing part of sex?"

"...huh?"

"Do people kiss when they have sex."

thinking: "Save me from this conversation... divert her attention to any other topic..."

I elect not to answer, hoping that ignoring the question will frustrate her enough to change the topic...

"Ma?"

"huh?"

"Is it?"

"Uh.... yes, it is a part of it."

"Oh. So when I kiss you, or Oma, or Uncle, or Ya, or PopPop, or someone, I'm having sex?"

[Stifling a nervous laugh, but thoroughly amused at the connection being made however uncomfortable this failing conversation was making me]

"No, honey. You are not having sex. A kiss among family is perfectly okay."

Chi seemed to be processing the information silently while seated in her booster seat directly behind my chair, but I couldn't see her expression. I'm certain that she's creating more questions to ask and is waiting for me to contradict my previous assertions about this taboo topic that I'd already said in previous discussions was yucky and not one I was supposed to talk about.

I think I failed miserably at trying to avoid the sex talk while planting the "this isn't something good people do" philosophy into her head. And, of course, I am kicking myself for allowing my child to be subjected to public school kids who - if the playground banter is any indication - are far more knowledgeable in adult activities than some adults are.

Suddenly the Fiddler on the Roof refrain, "Sunrise, Sunset" hits me hard:

"Is this the little girl I carried? ... I don't remember growing older... when did [she]?

When did she get to be a beauty? When did [she] grow to be so tall?

Wasn't it yesterday, When [she was] small?"