Science & Sex: Or How to Seriously Confuse your Kid

Outdoor enthusiasts. Wildlife nuts. Environmentalists. However you want to put it Mike and I both get really excited about the natural world. We watched the entire 11-hour BBC series "Planet Earth" and I can't wait to see the encore presentation later this month. (How cool is the first-ever film footage of a snow leopard catching prey?! C'mon!) To put it another way, I bought the Handy Science Answer Book for fun.

When I say this it should come as no surprise that I've already explained to my 21-month-old daughter that all mammals have breasts.

I mean when a kid points at your breasts in the shower and says "Was dat?" what else are you supposed to say?
"Those are mama's boobies. You have boobies too."
She looks down at her chest. "Me?"
"Yes, you. See."

And so the conversation has continued, as all toddler conversations do.
"Mama?"
"Yes, Mama has boobies"
"Daddy?"
"Yes, Daddy has boobies."

"Me?"

"Yep, you have 'em too."

"Dogdog?"

"Yes, Dogdog has boobies too. That's 'cause she's a mammal. All mammals have boobies."

Enough repetitions and I thought we had this down. Until today.

My grandma had breast cancer and a double mastectomy by the time she was 50. She's had prosthesis almost my entire life and it's omething we're all very used to. There are tales of me putting on her bra (fakes and all) backward and wearing it like a backpack around the house. Stories abound. And today we added another one to the canon.

Luci was running around the living room and found herself at one point seated in Nana's lap. She looked down at Nana's chest and noticed that, for a change, the obligatory bumps were not where they should be.

"Boobies?" she asked, and then proceeded to lift up Nana's shirt and search for them. When she couldn't find them in the typical place she looked under her arms, around on her sides and even down under the waistband of her pants.

Thoroughly confused she got down, ran over to my mom and lifted up her shirt: "Boobies." She lifted up her shirt: "Boobies." She ran back over to my Nana: "Boobies?"

My mom had to leave the room she was laughing so hard.

Ok, kid. I give in. Science is not exact. I guess there is an exception to every rule.

Of course the one that will really screw her up is when she sees Star Wars and the singer in the cantina on Tatooine.