Month: May 2015

Birds, Bees and (for lack of a better word)…Coconuts

/ DeeDeeFilly / 8 Comments

My little boy is getting the sex talk at school today.

Somebody get over here and HOLD ME.

IMG_5954

He is today embarking on the fifth grade science unit about “human growth and development.” That means that today the light will dawn on all those weird words I was never enlightened enough to teach him. (I’m sorry, but most of those words are gross…except for Vas Deferens, which sounds kind of fancy. I much prefer the vagaries of “down there.”)

IMG_5956

See what I mean??? Ugh.

Today he will watch that video (if he ever gets out from under his desk) with drawings of girls and boys “blossoming,” which boils down to getting hairy and growing “coconuts.” (That’s Will’s word. I swear I didn’t teach him that one.)

Today the shales will fall off his eyes and he will become acquainted with “sanitary napkins.”

Today my child will learn where babies come from, without any mention of storks or cabbage patches or God’s eternal mystery.

IMG_5955

Today is the end of the innocence.

I knowwww, I’m painfully repressed. I own that. But let me play for you the full-length, unedited director’s cut of my mother telling me about the birds and the bees.

Mom: “There are Kotex under the sink when you need them.”

Me: “Um, okay.”

GOOD TALK.

This is the same woman who left a box of KY Jelly wrapped in a paper towel on my nightstand on my wedding day. True story.

So yeah, I come by it honest.

But because so painfully little was said at my house, I know that it’s needed. And I do want things to be different with my own kids, so mom and dad are a safe place they can go with all their fears and questions and gross words (even though, let’s face it, my male child will likely never speak of these things again.)

I get it. I really do.

I’m just not quite ready for all that to be said TODAY.

I can’t remotely get a handle on how we got here this quick. I wish with all that is in me that I had ONE MORE YEAR. Just one.

I mean, he’s just a sweet little teeny-tiny eleven-year-old. See?

GoodniteMoon7_05_2

Clearly too young for this stuff.

I honestly think that by 6th grade, I’d admit, “Okay. It’s time.” And I’d be ready for a professional to handle this job for me, giving me time to prep for the questions he would never, ever ask me.

But that’s not what’s happening. We are here. Kicking and screaming or not, we’re here.

So today it’s time for game face. And for bear hugs for the traumatized kid about to walk through my door. For all the elevating words I can muster about “God’s design.” For a healthy dose of silliness and conspiratorial laughter, because seriously y’all, it is funny.

It’s time to face the music and be the mom I want to be — not some distant non-communicative shadow out of a John Hughes movie, but one who’s there, who gets it, who knows all the words and isn’t afraid to use them (if there is absolutely no other choice).

It’s time to show my kid a mom who loves him desperately — even with all his weird hairiness to come.

“You Out of Boxes Yet?” and Other Touchy Subjects

/ DeeDeeFilly / 10 Comments

Please forgive the dust bunnies in my hair. I’ve just clawed my way out from underneath a towering mound of boxes.

Boxtower

We are currently using these boxes as BLINDS.

The boxes here are heavy and plentiful and they’ve had me surrounded for weeks.

For a while, I wasn’t sure I’d ever dig my way out. But I’m starting to see glimmers of light peeking through the piles. I finally unearthed my jewelry box and my mouse pad.

Friends, there is hope.

In case you haven’t heard (I’ve been off the grid a while), we just moved from one house to another a whopping five minutes away. I swear, it might as well have been the moon.

Rearview

The act of miraculously containing every single, solitary, dad-blasted thing in one’s possession (from mango chutney to pet rabbit) then lugging every last scrap of it bodily somewhere else then cleaning up the slovenly dust bowl left behind is soul-crushingly, ridiculously hard. I mean, it just is. (Props to you military families. Seriously.)

I’ve heard moving is like childbirth.

That’s probably a bit of an exaggeration. I mean, the new house doesn’t scream at all hours like my newborn did, and in the aftermath, I don’t have to do ungodly things with a squirt bottle. But I can definitely see the parallel.

Moving is painful and messy and exhausting and all your embarrassing bits are revealed (like when you move that armoire you haven’t touched in 14 years and find a shag carpet of lint underneath.) There’s all the back-breaking build-up, that huge push to the finish line, followed by a mind-numbing wave of the “What now’s?”

Fort

Here’s the room where random boxes go to die. It is now a fort. Making chicken salad out of…well…you know.

But now that we’re here and settling in and finding room for a metric ton of stuffed animals, it’s totally worth it.

We love it here. We love the way the sun lights up the dining nook. We love all the neighborhood girls who come over and spill bubbles on our porch floor and ride plasma cars down our hill. We love the sense of new life beginning. It’s palpable…like that new baby smell.

Maybe years from now, I’ll forget how painful it was to get here and I’ll be ready to do it all over again.

NOT BLOODY LIKELY.

Let’s just put it in the books right now; somebody’s gonna need to bury me in the backyard. I’m here now, and I’m not leaving.

I’ve thrown away my KitchenAid box to prove it.

Powertool

Don’t mess. This girl has a power tool – and she knows how to use it. Sort of.

So let’s go ahead and make a pact. Until at least 2019, don’t even bother to ask, “Are you out of boxes yet?”  The answer will be NO.

The boxes are here to stay. And so am I.