So in case you’ve missed it…we homeschool. We have been doing a unit study on the human body, and today it finally happened. We reached the reproductive organs. Cringe. As much as I was dreading this, the kids were all ready to go.
The day’s lesson featured pictures of said organs for the kids to color in and glue to a life-sized tracing of their bodies made on butcher paper. Oh, joy.
Upon seeing the testicles, The Girl shrieked, “LOOOOOK! A BUTT!!” Cackle. Cackle.
“No, that’s not a butt. That’s the boy part.”
“Nooooo, boys have WIENERS!” she said, as if I were clearly a moron.
“Those are also boy parts. Those are the testicles (Ugh.)”
“TESTICLES? TESTICLES! TESTICLES!” More cackling with some bonus dancing. This time The Boy joined in.
Order was restored and we began reading…although every time The Boy got to the word “testicles” there was Beavis and Butthead-like giggling from both sides of the table.
Now onto the female parts…
“The ovaries hold the eggs.”
“Eggs?” The Girl wrinkled up her nose. “Like a chicken?”
“No, not like a chicken. They are small…”
“BAWK! BAWK! BAWK!”
“No, not…..” Groan.
We managed to move ahead and get to the worst part. (Yes, it got worse.) The part where I draw the weird, diagram that is so clearly shaped like a cow head. We somehow plowed through the egg moving from the ovaries and down into the uterus and possibly meeting with the sperm. Oh, the sperm.
“It SWIMS?” The Boy asked, incredulously. “How?”
“Well….,” I venture, “It has a sort of…(sigh) tail.” I picked up a marker and drew a little sperm with a wiggly tail.
“Like a tadpole!” The Boy grinned.
“Yes, yes. Like a tadpole.”
“Ohhhh! Let me have a marker. I wanna’ draw a SPERM!” cried The Girl.
“Erm…maybe later, okay?”
“So yeah, but how does the sperm get in there?” asked The Boy. “Wait, I know. The man pees on the girl, right?”
“NO! Um…no….”
“Is it kissing? It’s kissing, isn’t it?
“No…..,” I buried my face into my hands and began massaging my temples, hoping to alleviate the twitch developing in my eye. When I uncovered my face many, many moments later, they were still there. Drat.
“Mama, I know what a doctor calls the little tail that a boy has. It’s a penis.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“And that….,” she motioned again to the picture of the testicles, “that is the butt.”
Ack. “No. The testicles are the other bits. The things that are behind the little tail,” I clarify…and notice I am using my hands to gesture. I shove them under my legs.
“That’s the part that hurts when you get kicked there,” The Boy chimes in.
We forge ahead, with me muddling through an explanation of X and Y chromosomes how they make girl or boy babies.
“If the egg gets here and there is a sperm, a baby can start to be made,” I point at the cow’s face on my diagram.
“Yeah, the baby grows, when it’s ready to be born, it turns head down…goes down this tube and comes out the woman’s butt,” The Boy interjects. Hmm, he had started off so well….
“Not her butt,” I correct.
“No, another hole. But it is real close to her butt,” he concedes.
“EWWWWWW!” The Girl squeals.
I decide we’ve learned quite enough for one day. We move on to have the kids color in the pictures of the parts to glue onto their paper bodies.
“Here, it says to color the testicles purple. Do you want to color your testicles light purple or dark purple?” I ask The Boy. (Tee hee.)
The Boy jumps out of his chair and does a little dance, shaking his pelvis around. “I don’t know! You tell me!” he crows.
“Just color your testicles, okay?” Can’t say I’ve ever used that sentence before. Ever.
“Mom, will you help me cut out my testicles?”
“Cut out my testicles too, Mama!”
“Here! Here are your testicles! Come here take these! Take your testicles!”
“Just a little glue, okay? You don’t need a lot of glue for your testicles.”
“Go help your sister glue on her uterus.”
By now, the cat has joined in the action because he has a thing for stretching out across the butcher paper when we roll it out. He sniffs at the fresh glue an begins to sample it.
“Loooook! The cat is licking your testicles!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
“Cut it out! Don’t lick my testicles!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Then my phone rang. Ahhh, saved by the bell.
It was The Husband.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Oh, you know. The usual. Just doing some school.”
“Your uterus is glued on crooked!”
“There’s too much glue on my testicles!”
“What are they saying?”
“Nothing. Just, you know, studying the body. Let me go into the other room, ” I move the phone away and call to the kids…”Finish gluing your testicles and then turn on the Magic School Bus show about digestion, please.”
“Where are you going?” The Boy asks.
“I’m just going to go in the other room to talk to Daddy and take some to Advil,”….and scrub my brain with Lysol.
“By the way,” I tell The Husband,”The Boy wants to know how the sperm gets to the uterus to meet the egg. I told him you would tell him when you got home.”
“I don’t know,” The Husband says simply.
“What?”
“Nope, don’t know. My sex talk would be see there’s these birds and then there’s these bees……..”
Genius. Why didn’t I think of that?
23 responses so far ↓
1 // Mar 29, 2007 at 1:05 pm
I have not laughed this hard in some time..I had to remind myself that my little ones were napping.
My dh told our kids when they were 3 (dd) and 2 (ds) the proper names for their parts and they made a habit (in my opinion) of saying the names for said parts at the most inopportune times and places. I will have to tuck this one away for when I have to a more detailed teaching on the body. Thanks for the laugh.
2 // Mar 29, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Wow! That is a VERY detailed sex-ed lesson! At least they;ll NEVER forget it! (And neither will you…)
- Angel
3 // Mar 29, 2007 at 3:23 pm
That. Was truly effing awesome!
4 // Mar 29, 2007 at 6:25 pm
I laughed so hard I had tears coming out of my eyeballs. Completely hilarious. So much more fun than having a similar lesson with a room full of sixth graders, keeping a straight face, and not free to answer most of their questions.
5 // Mar 29, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Now that’s some home schooling….lol
6 // Mar 30, 2007 at 7:57 am
Hilarious! You handled that quite well considering.
First time stopping by…glad I did!
Modern Mami
7 // Mar 30, 2007 at 8:09 am
Testicles, uteruses, glue, crayons and a cat?! A party indeed!
Hysterical!!
8 // Mar 30, 2007 at 8:35 am
I am crying I’m laughing so hard. BEST. POST. EVER.
9 // Mar 30, 2007 at 4:36 pm
You have to love daddy logic.
10 // Mar 30, 2007 at 4:45 pm
HAHAHAHAHAHA! I laughed so hard I snorted!
I homeschool too and we’ve not done that lesson yet. Maybe I’ll send them to YOUR school when the time rolls around!
Please?
11 // Mar 30, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Found you thru MamaT’s blog….I about died Laughing over here…and i had to read it to my husband so he could share in the fun…truly hysterical!!
12 // Mar 30, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Oh my gosh, I have tears rolling down my face! I hope I have some times like that when I homeschool eventually. Thanks for the laugh, you are going on my must-read blog list!!!
13 // Mar 31, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Oh man I think when my next two youngest reach this age I’ll teach them your way. lol. Man, I would’ve been dieing of laughter doing that lesson though, not sure it would be appropriate.
14 // Apr 2, 2007 at 11:32 am
Comments closed on the testicle post or what? That is just wrong.
15 // Apr 3, 2007 at 12:52 am
AhHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!
I love it.
So great.
So classic.
So well told.
The best post I’ve ever read.
For. Sure.
16 // Apr 3, 2007 at 9:04 am
Oh holy hell that was funny.
‘go help your sister glue on her uterus.’
‘The cat is licking your testicles.’
I have to go and do my kegels.
17 // Apr 4, 2007 at 3:58 pm
My, but that is hilarious. Nice, nice writing.
18 // Apr 6, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Okay THAT? Is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time.
19 // Apr 6, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Years ago while our family was living in Oklahoma, I was driving home from preschool with my oldest daughter. My darling 4 year old was recounting her drama of the day which happened to be a near potty accident on the playground. She said that she was able to get inside just in time -
“before the pee came out of my other butt“.
After I composed myself, I explained to her that we only have 1 butt or bottom and that pee or urine comes out of our vagina.
She was quiet in the back seat for a minute or two and then she blurts out-
“Do I look like a girl from China??”
20 // Apr 7, 2007 at 3:00 pm
LOL!!! This is the funniest thing I’ve read in a loooong time..
21 // Apr 7, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Thanks for sharing, that was great! I can see my kids doing the same thing!
We also homeschool and it is so funny what kids come up with and how they will react to the topics we teach them!
22 // Apr 8, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I want you around to talk to the 5-year-old Question Kid the next time he spots an empty condom box and 6 obviously used rubbers tossed out in the middle of the Wal-Mart parking lot (and there’s gotta be a story there!)… Laugh? My dear, forget snorting coffee on the keyboard, I almost split a seam!
23 // May 3, 2007 at 9:42 pm
VERY funny! Reminds me of how my normally unassuming daughter seems to always pick the perfect time to bust out a gem. She was about 5 years old, my husband was pushing her on the swing at the park, surrounded by other Mommy’s, I was sitting watching, she starts singing, top of her lungs, ‘Beauty School Drop Out’ from Grease, not just any line… no, only the line “But no customer would go to you, unless she was a hooker” Over, and over, and over… I swear, we had never commented on that line, she instinctively knew something was naughty about it, therefore AWESOME! About the same age, she decided to start a loud Q & A with me at an amusement park about PENISES. Sweet.
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