A Daddy Don't

Caution....this post is not for the faint of heart. It details a 'coming of age' conversation that will forever be ingrained in the brain of my sweet 10 year old daughter. I for one, will never look at a tissue box quite the same. That being said, if you choose to read on, beware!

Our family members all have fairly good (albeit warped) senses of humor.
Thank God for that.
Our daughter turned 10 in December. Things are starting to 'happen' and I have had a talk with her here and there. (I'd like to thank my sister Page for the wonderfully GRAPHIC horse book showing a horse giving birth to a beautiful little foal.) "Do babies come out your BUTT?"
THAT particular conversation took place 2 years ago.
Taught me to LOOK at the books my kids received as gifts.

But that was a different conversation. This one was a 'Daddy don't' type of conversation.
We have labels in our family. "Mommisms", "Daddy don'ts" and "New Improved Daddy" are just a few of our favorites.

Last night we had a "daddy don't" moment.

I realized it was getting close to our favorite tv show. Our daughter had taken a late shower and as I was combing conditioner through her hair, Dean (loving husband and father) came home from working out. I grabbed the remote to see what episode was on in case we wanted to tape it to watch later.
In doing so, we caught the tail end of an episode of "According to Jim" a new Jim Belushi sitcom that really is funny. It showed a little girl at a party. Jim was doing all these daddy things for a party but it wasn't until 5 or so minutes into it that we realized the 'party' was for a little girl who had started her period.

I flipped the channel but it was too late, my daughter was like. "What's a period?" I gently reminded her of our little (horrifying) talk we had before and was hoping that would suffice. Wrong. She said 'yeah, we did talk...but what EXACTLY is a period?" "Could you tell me more?"

So, I started to get all mommy and delicate and waxed poetic about the changes a young woman's body goes through once the pituitary gland tells it to start being a woman...blah, blah, blah.
Dean is like "oh, for crying out loud, let ME tell her." I was not ABOUT to let HIM tell her. So I am laughing and fumbling around trying to say it 'just right.' Dean is laughing at me the whole time.
I continued on about eggs and so forth when about that time, my husband jumps up and grabs the tissue box that was on the nightstand.
He holds the box above his head (out of my reach) and says in an ultra loud radio- announcer voice: "pretend this box is your uterus," then "the fallopian tubes move the egg into your uterus and when your egg doesn't turn into a baby, it gets rid of it...."
At THIS point in daddy ' G.Y.N. 101', he RIPS the tissue from the box and tosses it to the floor. K says......'so whats the tissue for?" And daddy says, none too delicately, "oh, THAT represents your uterine lining!"

Okay.... for a moment think of Linus from the Charlie Brown comic strip, how he holds his ears and runs screaming from the room...AAGGHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Yep. That sums it up. She really WAS holding her ears too.
Our daughter....well, the only thing we could see was the bottom of her feet.

Then, being the horribly blunt daddy he is, he then yells back....oh, and you might see a little ...................you get the idea.
But honey, " DON'T FREAK OUT."
(At this we heard a 'EWWWWWWWW, GROSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.")

Yeah..........too late. She had already freaked out. I was trying to decide whether to follow her or just let it go and avoid the rest of the conversation when she came back.
I guess it was sort of like watching a train wreck. Her curiosity had won out over her being 'totally grossed out."

The rest of the conversation was saved by me and went quite well....

Except for when she asked if the "eggs were like chicken eggs" and Dean started squawking like a chicken and pretended to LAY AN EGG on the bed. At that point, I had to explain how tiny human eggs were.

After all that, I took her upstairs to tuck her in bed.
Our son, was feeling a little bit left out because he had heard all the screaming and laughter and running around. So when we walk upstairs he says 'hey, what were ya'll doing?"
Our daughter proudly turned to him and said 'we were talking about when I get my period.'

He looked at her and then he looked at me and then he said 'Oh' and simply shut the door.