Anatomy Class

All my friends with kids have so many funny stories about the goofy things their children say when they're first learning to speak and while they're trying to figure out how things in the world work. I am so happy we have a few of those, but the one that takes the cake at the moment is my little boy's figuring out gender... In one of my favorite "How to Raise a Toddler" books, it says that children this age have no idea about gender, and by around age 4-6 they start defining gender by clothing - girls wear dresses, ponytails, etc, boys have short hair and such. But there's always a funny story about the road to figuring out what makes boys boys and girls girls. Oliver has one such story. Nich might kill me for telling it, but I HAVE to record it since I think it's a great one to tell his future wife :)

The other morning when Nich was done showering and getting dressed, he realized the clothes he wanted were in the drier after washing them the night before (yeah, how cool is it that my husband launders his own clothes fairly regularly? I didn't say FOLD and PUT AWAY, but I'll take wash and dry, ha ha ha!) and walked through the house stark naked on his way to the drier. Oliver and I were in the living room - now just as background information, seeing one of us getting dressed is pretty normal for our 26 month old - so neither Nich nor I thought anything of it. That is until Oliver looked up, pointed and shouted "Daddy penis!!!!!" Without losing a step, Nich disappeared into the laundry room and there I was saying, "Yes, that is Daddy's penis. Ready to read this book?" Oliver stood up, grabbed his diapered and pajama'd crotch and said "Dada's penis." (Oliver calls himself Dada). I agreed that was where it was, but then he looked concerned and said. "Where'd it go?" I told him it was in his diaper...meanwhile, Nich walks back through the room back to our bathroom. Still stark naked. So Oliver starts pointing things out again and getting very troubled about where his own penis went.

I took his diaper off and told him his penis was still safe right there, and penis in hand, Oliver ran to the full-length mirror in our room shouting "Dada's penis, Daddy's penis" and stood there staring proudly at himself. At this point, Nich was fairly dressed and we thought Oliver was ready to get dressed too, until he turned to me and asked, "Mamma's penis?" Oh dear. "No, Mamma doesn't have one, just boys like Daddy and Oliver do." I could see the little gears turning as he, I assume, was thinking back to the times he's seen Mamma getting dressed, and he started asking about who else had a penis. Oh my. So we went through the list of everyone he knew - if you're related to him, I'm sure we talked about your private anatomy with our son, I'm sorry...and Oliver was REALLY interested in all of this talk. Until we got to Chester and Daisy. Chester has a penis, Daisy doesn't. Wow, that about blew his mind! THANKFULLY he didn't need proof of it, so the dogs and all our relatives are off the hook ;)

I'm sure this is not the end of this discussion, and is only the beginning, but what a fun start to Anatomy 101, huh?