The birds and the bees

It's a momentous time in the world according to me. This week my daughter begins the "health education" unit at school and that is code for sex education.

Just saying those two words, sex education, is enough to make me dizzy. There is no way my sweet little girl can be old enough.

I know that this is an enormous step in growing up and I'm not ready for it on so many levels. I think the primary force of resistance, though, is not wanting to let her go. Not wanting to crack open the door through which she will eventually walk towards a life on her own.

Do you ever wish you could freeze time?

This is me standing at the edge of the precipice and staring into the abyss that is the teenage years. It looks scary.

Fortunately I still have some control over the portion of my brain that allows me to act reasonably when faced with one of my daughters learning about SEX. I decided that it would be wise to give my daughter "the talk" at home rather than hearing it for the first time at school. Call me naive but I am convinced she's blissfully uninformed when it comes to the raging hormones, boy lust, PMS, mood swings, cramps, bloating puberty.

If she is as unaware as I suspect, can you imagine her surprise as she sits in the classroom while the guidance counselor methodically explains just exactly how that baby came to be in your mom's tummy? In my imagination it goes like this:


I see a diagram. There's always a visual.
All the better to sear it into your brain.








I see my daughter's shocked face as the horror
of reality permeates her mind.






And then I see her falling out of her chair,
passed out cold on the floor



But what if she knows more than I think? We have a close relationship. I'd know... right?! I finally stopped wandering in mental circles and just came right out and asked, and apparently they are talking about boys. ((What?!)) She said that some of the things being said were ((gasp)) a little inappropriate and I braced myself to hear what came next:

"Well, mom... some of the girls have been talking about boys. Fiona says there's a boy at the bus stop that is h-o-t, HOT. She talked about him all the time last week. It was so annoying. We finally told her, enough, he's just a boy."

The boy part was said with complete and utter disdain.

She had nothing else to add.

Wow.

I think I've got some explaining to do.