The Birds and the Bees at Home

Bella was nestled against me under the covers of my warm bed. Steve was long gone and the other kids were still snoring softly down the hall in their bedrooms. The sky had not yet been kissed by dawn's early light. The streets were covered with a light snow.

I took advantage of our rare quiet intimacy to broach a touchy topic.  I'd been doing some research for a piece I'm writing about "the talk" and I wanted to get a sense of how long I had until I needed to go through that terrifying parental hurdle with my eldest. I treaded into the treacherous waters carefully.

"Bella," I asked, "do you know where babies come from?"
"Of course I do," she answered, "they come out your butt."
Deep breath. Note to self to cover some basic anatomy concepts.
I plowed on, "But do you know how babies get in mommies' bellies?"
She replied impatiently, "We've talked about this mommy. It's when a man loves a woman, and a woman loves a man, and they kiss because they want to have a baby. I'm going to go get dressed now, okay?"

And with that self-assured statement, she threw the blanket off my bed and flooded me with the cold air of the morning. Time to face the day and begin preparing for our own big talk.

In writing my article about Having the Sex Talk, I referenced many great books for parents and children about developing bodies, including a book I received from the Silicon Valley Moms Blog book club,  The Body Scoop for Girls.