Sex Ed

It's that time of the year again when the prepubescent children in our district get to learn about the facts of life. Oh joy! Last year was my first experience with sexual education class. The school does and excellent job with preparing parents for this big step in their child's life. They invite everyone to preview the film they show, which I fully intended on going to, but failed to attend. Oops! I forgot to write it down, a mistake I would come to regret many times over.

Honestly, I wasn't too upset about missing the premiere. I figured it couldn't be so bad. After all, I had already had "the talk" with my son. Okay, I didn't have "the talk", my husband did. But I listened intently as I hid in the hallway outside his bedroom.

I didn't expect to be that parent that couldn't talk freely with my son, Pumpkin Head, about sex. I always thought I would be pretty good at "the talk". After all, I'm calm, cool and collected. I thought I would be so laid back that my son would feel comfortable coming to me with any questions or concerns. The truth is he doesn't have problems asking me anything, it's just I can't answer. I'm the one with the problem. What happened to calm, cool and collected? Well it flies out the window when it comes to "the talk". I swear, every time he asks me a question my tongue swells up the size of Texas and I can barely form words let alone make a sentence that makes any sense. Let me tell you something, if you haven't had "the talk" yet, it's not as easy as it seems.

So, in a way I was relieved that the school was going to be sharing with me this monumental experience in my parental existence. In other words I thought I was off the hook.

Wrong! Nothing could have prepared me for the questions that followed the weeks after the program was shown. Okay, maybe the preview night could have prepared me, but like I said before, I didn't write it down. Anyway, the questions didn't come in the form of a flood like I expected, it was more like a trickle that lasted for months!

One day while doing his homework, Pumpkin Head turned to me and said, "Hey mom, did you know that I have testicles?"

Whoops. Guess we missed that one when we were going over body parts.

One time after baseball practice, as he was running up stairs to change, he stopped mid step, looked at me and said, "Mom, when am I going to wake up wet?"

Huh? It took me a minute, then it hit me! The only thought that popped into my mind was, what kind of movie did they show you?

I was on full alert. I didn't know when a question would hit, or in what form it would be in. Would we be at dinner? Or perhaps at church? No, maybe he would ask the next one while I was on the phone with my grandma. It's been a year now, and they're still coming at me. However, not so much are they questions, but statements. Last night Pumpkin Head told me he was a man. Apparently he discovered some body hair. A man? Really? What happened to my little baby boy?

This year it's going to be different. I've decided to take a different approach, and actually be prepared. Soon, Monkey will be taking his turn at finer education. Oh, and not just Monkey, Pumpkin Head gets to learn more! So I'm being pro-active. I'm going to see the movie, in fact I'm going to watch all the movies they show. After all, Queenie is coming up in the ranks and these sex ed films go on for another two years. I need to know what I'm up against. I'm hoping with preparation I won't fold like I have in the past. All I can say is thank God for my husband. Without him my kids would be terribly confused.

I need to grow some thick skin if I'm going to get through the next few years. I have to accept the fact that my children are growing up and with that comes puberty. I'm not an idiot, I knew they would grow to become a young woman and young men. Buddy did. He went through it, but I got out of that one. He lived with his mom then. My kids won't be going anywhere while they go through the change. Even though it would be cool if they did go into like a cocoon or something. Think about it, the mood swings would be contained.

I'm entering a new phase, one I'm not sure I'm ready to enter. For the past eleven years I've looked at my kids as being little and I think they're past that now. I'm scared. Not like scared I might screw up scared, but really truly scared. Teenagers frighten me! I wonder if I can take a class to prepare me for puberty? Oh, who am I kidding. I'd never go because I'd forget to write it down. I think I'm in trouble.