Thursday, April 23, 2015

The Time My Son Said I Was Sexy

I love to be called sexy, except when it comes from my seven year old son.

While sitting next to me, my son hugged me and said, "Mommy, I think you are sexy."

After I finished choking on my tea, I realized I needed to treat this statement like walking through a mine field. If I could carefully navigate myself around the trigger words, I could possibly come out unscathed.

"Um, Sweety do you know what the word 'sexy' means?" I asked.

"It means 'I love you' mommy. You're sexy."

Whew, what a relief my hunch was right, he had no clue.

"No, honey, that's not what it means, " and I prepared for the obvious next question.

But to my surprise something very different came out of his mouth. The conversation went from 0 to 100 in just one minute.

"Well I know what the 'F word' means," he said proudly.

Holy hockey sticks. I wasn't ready for this conversation. He was only seven. I was shitting golden bricks at this point and just wanted to run away.

I had no idea what to say. I really hadn't thought about ever having to have this conversation with him. What was the correct thing to say? I didn't want to scar him for life.

I remembered how my mother told me about sex: she simply handed me a book called "How Baby's Are Made" that started out with cartoon chickens having sex and ended with a cartoon mommy in bed and a cartoon daddy on top riding her like a Harley Davidson Night Rod Special.

After seeing this book, I vowed to stay a virgin at least until 50. I never, ever wanted a cartoon daddy on top of me.

So I asked him, "Where did you hear that word?" Here in The Netherlands, the word is used sparingly, but it would shock me if he knew what it actually meant.

"MOVIES," he said in a threatening way.

"Ok, Luca, what do you think it  means?"

"You know mommy."

"Yes I do, but I wonder if YOU know."

And we went on like his for a few rounds until he told me.

"It means 'neuken'."

Ok, "neuken" is the Dutch word for the F-word, so indeed he could very well know what it meant.

My head began to whirl and I was speechless. I opened my mouth to say something and nothing came out.

Then he started laughing and said "I saw things on TV, Mommy."

WTF, I thought to myself, what could he have seen on TV? Surely the Lego Ninjas weren't getting it on.

But I had to face it now or later. I had to face the fact that my kids were no longer babies and this was just part of their growing up. I had to get some Mommy Balls and just tackle the issue head on. I was prepared to be honest and talk about it.

I said, "Ok, Luca what did you see on TV?"

"Well you know, this..." and he began to kiss and lick all over his hand.

"Ok Luca, that is part of it, but there is more to it."

"No Mommy I know, I saw it. And you and Papa have sex too too.  I see you in the hallway sometimes."

He had me for a second, but then I came back to reality and began to laugh uncontrollably. First of all, the hallway? The hallway has seen about as much action as a convent on prayer night. So he had to be talking about when daddy gives mommy a kiss goodbye, which I didn't realize were so steamy.

I finally stopped giggling to notice that Luca was beaming.  He was so proud of himself for knowing something so adult. I grabbed him up and hugged him. Thank goodness his curiosity was satisfied for the moment and it seemed neither one of us was ready for him to grow up too much just quite yet.

He scooped up his Toothless stuffed toy and returned to his imaginary world full of dragons and ninjas.

And I went straight to the internet. So when Luca was ready to grow a bit more, I would be ready to guide him and shatter his dream that mommy and daddy don't have sex in the hallway before work.