Ketchup Is a Vegetable: And Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves (25 page)

“Yeah, but you kiss Daddy like that, huh?”

“Yes honey, I kiss Daddy like that. But I’m a grown-up and we’re married. So it’s okay.”

“Big kissing isn’t for kids, huh Mommy?”

“Nope,” I said as I tried to nonchalantly run out of the room.

I know there will be a point when I have to discuss sexual matters with her, and honestly I’m trying to take these questions as they come. But sometimes the pressure is more than I can stand, and I have to get away to take a deep breath and come up with my best answer. I know what I would say to her if she was fourteen-years-old, but how much information is enough and how much is too much for a four-year-old? We all know how the whole “vagina” situation turned out… she knows she has one, can’t that be enough for now?

When Sadie was born, my mother brought Aubrey and Emma to the hospital to see her. Emma couldn’t have cared less if I’d had a baby or a litter of kittens, all she wanted was her Momma. She wanted to crawl all over me in the bed (thank God my epidural was still working) and she made it quite clear she would not be leaving the hospital without me of her own free will.

Aubrey, on the other hand, was enthralled with her new baby sister. She wanted to unwrap her from her nest of blankets and count Sadie’s fingers and toes. It made me smile as I remembered how my Granddaddy used to hold Aubrey and do the very same thing. Aubrey wanted to know what every piece of equipment in the room was for, and what every bracelet on my wrist meant. My epidural was just starting to wear off when Aubrey decided to really turn up the heat on her questions.

“Momma, how’d she get out of your belly?”

“I just pushed really hard and she popped out.”

“But how Momma?”

“Aubrey, you want some of my popsicle?”

“How did her get out Momma? How? Out of your belly-button?”

Now I have determined one thing for sure and that is, I will
not
lie to my children. Call me crazy, but I want them to be able to trust me about things that matter and I refuse to lie to them about insignificant things. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny come to our house, but our kids know it’s pretend and it’s really Mommy and Daddy, and you can just trust me on this, they have just as much fun as anybody else on holidays. Aubrey might not be able to tell you what a Christian is, but dadgummit she knows why we celebrate Christmas and Easter.

Not that a baby coming out of your coo-coo is insignificant, mind you, but I just wasn’t sure she could be trusted to keep this kind of stuff to herself. I didn’t want her going to school and blurting out this new information — I might not lie to my kids, but I respect your right to do it all day long if you want to.

“MOMMA! HOW DID HER GET OUT?”

I was waiting for her to swing a delivery room light into my face, pull up a folding chair, blow cigarette smoke in my face and ask, “Where were you on the night in question?” And I’ll admit it; she had me on the ropes. I was sweating and about to cave. I was ready to give up my source, to blurt out, “MY COO-COO!” When, thankfully, a nurse came in to administer some medicine through my IV and Aubrey’s preschool attention span kicked into high-gear.

“Oooo, cool! What’s that?”

I was off the hook for a little while at least. Almost six months later, Aubrey was snuggling on the couch and watching TV with her daddy one evening when I overheard her ask, “Daddy, are you the one that makes my Mommy all sweaty?”

I had heart palpitations and leaned against the kitchen counter to steady myself as I called to my husband, “WHAT did she just say? And why did she say it?”

My husband laughed at my obvious distress and explained that Aubrey’s back was sweating where she was leaning against him. I took a few deep cleansing breathes and prayed for a little bit more time before I had to explain “getting sweaty” to her.

O

h God. Oh God, oh God, oh God — I thought I had more time. I thought I had years to read, do research and ask for advice before one of my kids
needed to know
. I thought I would be all Claire Huxtable and take my daughters out for a special mother-daughter day to celebrate our womanhood and dish the dirt on the facts of life. I thought at the very least that my children would be capable of brushing their own teeth before we needed to talk about sex. But I was wrong, and I
hate
being wrong.

After Sadie’s birth and Aubrey’s Great Inquisition while I was still in the delivery room, I was faced with a new dilemma. Aubrey was
dying
to know how the baby had gotten out of my body. I did all I could to keep from lying to her, telling her the truth and seem like I wasn’t actually avoiding the topic.

Luckily for me, for almost six months she could be easily distracted with a, “Hey, look at that! Emma has your favorite naked Barbie!” I would point to an empty corner and run into the kitchen to gulp down some Mommy Juice and hope to God she wouldn’t follow me with more questions.

But she eventually wore me down. For a month Aubrey asked me at least twice a week, “Mommy, how do babies get in your tummy?” I started to feel guilty about putting her off and realized I was going to have to tell her something.

“It’s a really long story,” I told her the last time she asked. I was hoping to put her off at least one more time so I wouldn’t have to discuss
s-e-x
in the car, in front of her little sister.

An hour later Aubrey stated matter of factly, “I’m ready to hear that story about how babies get in your tummy, now.”

I realized I could no longer avoid the topic. It didn’t matter that she was only five. She was in school, making friends with kids who had older siblings and I could either answer her questions or wait until she asked someone else.

“We’ll talk about it later honey. I promise.” Dammit. Being a mother is hard.

I waited until we were home and I had time to do some online research. I googled “what to tell your five-year-old about sex,” and read all I could. I waited until Emma was distracted doing who knows what, and I called Aubrey into the living room by herself.

“What is it Momma?” she asked with her eyebrows raised.

“You know how you’ve been asking me about how babies get into mommies’ tummies?” I asked as she crawled into my lap.

Her face
lit
up and she nodded, excited. (Why didn’t I think to pour myself a strong drink before we got into this? God help me, help me, help me, help me!)

“Well, I’m ready to talk to you about it now. It’s sort of like ‘potty-talk.’ It’s not nice to talk about it with people you don’t know or other children at school. Okay?”

“Like talking about my privacy… right Momma?”

“That’s right, baby.”

I took a deep breath and dove in, “Sooo, Mommies have an egg in their bellies and Daddies have a seed…” I swallowed a little throw-up in the back of my mouth. “And the Daddy puts the seed in the Mommy’s belly and it makes a baby.”

She smiled from ear to ear. “That is so cool, Momma!”

Oh, Lord… thank you! Thank you, I made it.

“But Momma…”

What
the hell
did she mean, “But Momma?” According to my Internet research
this
was as far as my conversation with my
five-year-old
was supposed to go!

“What, baby?”

“How do the Daddies get the seed
in there
?”

I wasn’t prepared for this but I knew that my best bet was to be as honest as possible. I took a deep cleansing breath, tried to maintain eye contact and said, “Well, they um, they use their penises…”

I don’t think I could have said anything that could have surprised her more.

Aubrey began to snicker, “Their PENISES?” Once she started laughing there was no stopping her, she laughed until she was doubled over in my lap, wheezing with tears squeezing out the corners of her eyes.

“Are you for real, Momma?”

By this point I was pretty tickled too, and all I could do was nod.

“OH MY GOSH! THAT IS SO SILLY! They just poke it in your belly?”

I nodded again… I mean,
really
— enough is enough.

Once we were able to get ourselves together, I asked her seriously, “Aubrey, did that answer all of your questions?”

“Yep.”

“Good. I want you to know that if you ever have any questions about anything you can come to me. Understand? No matter what it is, I’ll always be ready to talk to you and help you.”

“Okay, Mommy.”

I said another silent ‘Dear God
Please
!’ prayer, held my breath and asked, “Do you have anything else you want to ask me?”

Aubrey matched my tone perfectly as she stared into my eyes and said seriously, “No. Did you have anything else you wanted to tell me?”

No actually, after telling my five-year-old how babies are made — I think I’ve pretty much said everything I want to say for this evening... except for maybe, “Pass the Mommy Juice.”

I
would like to formally apologize to anyone who found themselves in Northwoods Mall in Charleston, South Carolina, on August 24, 2009, at approximately 12:47pm. That eardrum-rupturing scream you heard for a full fifteen minutes?
That
was my kid.

My mother was in town visiting and needed to go shopping for clothes to wear to my younger brother’s wedding. It was Aubrey’s first day of kindergarten so I thought it would be a special treat to take Emma to the mall for lunch and a little playtime on the mall’s indoor play area.

Emma is my wild child, but on this morning she was being a complete angel. She walked beside our Sit-n-Stand stroller as I pushed Sadie through the stores and only hid in a rack of clothes twice. Every time I asked her to stop touching something she
immediately
replied, “Okay. I wee-ill Momma.” She held my hand, said please and thank you and smiled at the Dead Sea Minerals chicks as they verbally assaulted us every time we passed them, “Miss, excuse me… Miss, can I ask you a question?”

We ate lunch in the food court and I’ll admit I was getting a
little
smug about how wonderful my children were behaving. I don’t know what it is about having kids, but no matter how many you have, having one less seems like the easiest thing in the world. You have one baby and you can barely make it through the day, but once you have a second child, you realize how easy it actually was. And anytime you have one less, you feel like you’re on vacation.

That’s exactly how I was feeling as we ate lunch. I actually said
out loud
(but thankfully, only to my mother who has raised three babies and probably knew I was going to eat my words,) “Oh my goodness, this is so nice! Emma, Sadie and I might start coming up here more often; she’s playing so well and minding. I’m so glad school has started back!”

Cue the kamikaze death spiral.

Emma was not
impressed when it was time to leave the play area and was determined to twist the knob of every gumball machine until
something
came out, even though she hadn’t put any money in the machine. I coaxed, cajoled, begged and — I’m not ashamed to admit it — bribed.

She finally agreed to release her death grip on the gumball machine when I produced a lollipop out of my diaper bag. About the time the lollipop disappeared we were in the Dillard’s shoe department watching my mother try on shoes. Or trying to watch, anyway.

Quick soapbox here — if you don’t want mothers to shop in your store just put a sign on the front door that says “Keep Your Brats to Yourself” or some such thing, because nothing,
nothing
irritates me more than to be in a store
trying
to shop and the aisles are not wide enough for a stroller to fit through. I would prefer that you just save me some time and a whole arsenal of cuss words, and give it to me straight.

Back to my story… I was cussing under my breath so Momma and Emma wouldn’t hear me, while attempting to maneuver my stroller close enough to see Momma’s shoes and give an opinion. It was getting close to nap time and I was getting worried. Emma needs naps like Lindsey Lohan needs the paparazzi — she cannot survive without them.