conversations with Charlie: Female Anatomy 101

[scene:  We are sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office.  Charlie is sitting on my lap, covered in hives (the reason we are there) and swinging his cowboy boots while I read a book quietly to him. ]

Charlie, looking up to watch a very pregnant woman cross the room, then talking loudly:  Mama, that goyul has a baby in her tummy! 

Mama:  Yes she does!  How exciting!

Charlie:  It is going to come out soon? 

Mama:  I don’t know.  It will come out when it is ready.

Charlie, after a long pause in which the wheels of logic start turning:  But Mama, how does the baby come out without making a big hole in her tummy?

[all eyes, every head, in the room swivels towards us, suddenly very interested in our conversation…]

Mama, blushing and trying desperately not to make eye contact with anyone who is staring:  Um…, Well…, God makes a special hole for the baby to come out.

Charlie:  Where is the hole? On her tummy?

Mama:  No, you can’t really see it.

Charlie:  Is it ‘visible? No, I mean INvisible?  Visible means you can see it and invisible means you can’t see it?

Mama, hoping this is a conversation diversion opportunity:  Yes, visible means you can see it and invisible means you can’t see it even though it is there, like the wind, or like heat.  Can you think of anything else invisible?

Charlie: The baby comes out an invisible hole?

Mama:  Not really, Charlie, but I think we are going to have to talk about this at home.

Charlie:  Why?

Mama:  Well, it is more of a  private conversation.  So I will explain better when we get home, OK?

Charlie: OK.  Can I see a baby’s invisible hole, Mama?

Mama: Maybe, someday, Charlie.  But let’s talk about it later, OK?

Charlie:  OK! 

[While I have no qualms whatsoever discussing the birds and the bees in a child-appropriate way, I never in my life considered broaching the conversation for the first time in public!!!  That surely puts a whole new twist on it!  Yeesh!]

To her father, And his…
To the man who has stuck by my side in this high-seas adventure called parenting.  For the boy of my heart who knows how to be calm in the storm, speaks with wisdom, and who day after day, gives us the gift of FUN!  

Your children are blessed to call you Dada, and I’m blessed to be your girl. 
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!

Meet the newest members of our household!

Invisible Friends!!! That’s right,  Doodoo and Doddy.  They enjoy frequent meals, love ‘tend’ (pretend) food, never eat their vegetables and come with us on most outings.  They travel by pocket or by fist and Doddy has no Daddy.  This is sad, but he does have Doodoo, his best friend, to make up for it.  

Tan-tan is one of their friends.  Tan-tan lives in a cave and sometimes confuses his pet porcupine for his pillow at night.  This leads to very pokey dreams in his ‘dream place’ while he is sleeping.  (We made up a silly song to sing about it. ) 

Now that Doddy and Doodoo live in our house, they help Charlie process all sorts of things.  A couple weeks ago, I was making a celebration cake for his Aunt Catherine’s graduation.   He decided that Doddy and Doodoo also needed a cake, a “bwack biwfday” cake.  

So while I gathered and poured in the ingredients, so did he.  (Mama looked on and tried not to twitch too much as he gathered all the little toys in the house to be his cake batter.  I had no idea we had so many little parts and pieces until I saw them in one place!)

This video meanders…look at about 3:15 to hear about Doddy and Doodoo.

When I stirred up my cake, so did he.  Wendy, though bemused, did her best to help.

Thankfully,  while I washed up the dishes, he did put most of the little cars away!  I never did hear if Doddy and Doodoo liked their birthday or not.  Maybe that’s because they are not my ‘tend’ friends! 

shooting the breeze

Wendy has started jumping in on the conversations belonging to the fully verbal members of the family.    Of course, not being able to talk has limited her ability to participate, but it has not dampened her enthusiasm for trying.   She patiently waits until she hears a word she recognizes and then loudly belts out her version of it.  It often has nothing whatsoever to do with the conversation.  Here are two examples:  (Charlie and Mama are reading a rather factual book about bats.  The discussion is about how they can fly without seeing. On the floor, Wendy is chewing on a Woody pez dispenser and determinedly trying to stuff a kid’s cymbal into her shoe.)

Charlie:  Dey can see in the dawk?  Like me, cuz I eat cawots?
Mama:  No, they can’t see in the dark, but they can hear so well with their ears that they they don’t bump into things.
Charlie:  But how do du bats heaw so good?
Wendy:  (ripping Woody out of her salivating mouth and getting up to come at us with an intense look on her face, all the while repeating in a hoarse, growling voice)  Ba-BA(Batman)!  BA-BA, BA-BAH(BATMAN)!!!!

(In the car on the way to prayer group at a house where Charlie recently enjoyed playing in the back yard during a graduation party for their daughter. )

Charlie: Are we goin der to go outside and eat those yummy muwbewies(mulberries) again?
Mama: No, we are going to prayer group. We will stay inside this time.
Charlie: Why did we go outside dah last time we was dere?
Mama: That was a party with lots of people. This is just prayer group and we will all fit inside.
Charlie: It was Miss Mwee’s biwfday?
Wendy: (suddenly erupting from her car seat, in a loud, droning and very off-key tone) Ha Boo-yay! HA BOO-YAY! HAP BUTAY NEh yuh….hu…..nu… HAPT BOO-YAY!!!!

Wendy’s growing conversation “skills” have been all but ignored until I noticed her doing this yesterday. Since then, I have not been able to stop laughing at her.  Even though she seriously sounds like she has dementia and hearing problems, I love how intensely this sweet ‘goyul’ wants to keep up and be part of her family!

the widdle, weeny whiney voice

Charlie:  "Ders a voice in my bones, Mama, a widdle tiny weeny whiney voice that says, [in a high squeaky voice] “I need juice!"”

Mama:  "Is there?”

Charlie:  "Ders a map on my shirt dat tells me da way to treasure. It goes into my tummy.  You open your mouth and ders a way to my stomach from my mouth and my bones needs  some juice.  So dey are saying,  (in a high squeaky voice) “Follow duh map!””

Mama:  "That’s what the map says?”

Charlie:  "Yes!  It says you go dis way and den dat way(pointing with his finger).  You put the juice in yow mouth and swallow it down your foat (throat).  Yow fowt is long and it goes stwaight to yow tummy.  You dwink it down and den it’s stwaight in your tummy and it goes along yow skin and right to your bones!! An the bones are so ‘cited ‘bout getting some juice!  Dey just gobble it up!” (putting both hands out to the side and bouncing them up and down to emphasize each word)  “Isn’t dat GWEAT?!”

Mama:  “Uh…”

Charlie: “So, mama, can I have some juice?” (sensing my dumfounded silence to be some form of hesitance, and trying to cement the deal) “Fow to make my bones be happy?”