Dinner Time Banter

The conversation had taken a turn for the worse. What had started off talking about the Queen’s birthday had somehow plummeted into parachuting and flying poos.

I tuned out to the toilet-humoured banter around the dinner table and tried to rewind the conversation to find out how it had got to this point. And then realised it was my fault.

“Did you know it’s a holiday this weekend,” I had asked the children. “Because it’s actually the Queen’s birthday so everyone gets a holiday to celebrate.

“I bet Grandma is happy about that,” quipped Master Seven. Their great-grandma has long been a big fan of Elizabeth and is constantly being told she resembles the queen, much to her delight.

“I bet the Queen gets a lot of presents,” remarked Master Four.

“Maybe we should take her one on an aeroplane?” suggested Miss Four.

“But then we might have to go to the toilet,” Master Four.

“Aeroplanes have toilets,” I told him. Then out of curiosity to hear how far their imaginations could stretch, and probably where I went wrong, I asked: “What do you think happens when you flush it?”

Three frowns then: “All the poos and wees fall from the sky.”

“No, aeroplanes have tanks which are emptied when it lands,” I explained and should have left it there. Instead, I couldn’t resist recounting a story I’d read in the paper years earlier.

“But did you know that one time there was a leak and, remember the other day when I explained to you how hail was formed as it fell through the air? Well that happened and someone found a frozen poo in their backyard.”

This, of course, had the expected response so I continued.

“The people who found it couldn’t figure out where it came from and thought it must have been from an alien until they solved the mystery.”

By now their imaginations were working overtime and they took turns at narrating their own experiences of aeroplanes and frozen faeces until Master Seven topped the lot by relating the time he’d parachuted out of an aeroplane when the frozen poo went flying past and landed on his brother’s head, of course.

And that brought me back to the present. I’m not sure what Elizabeth, or grandma for that matter, would have to say about all that nonsense.

Embarrassing Bodies

Oftentimes I dread picking the twins up from kindy.

You see, like many kids of their age they are keen story tellers and like to divulge a little too much information, the likes of which sometimes gets repeated back to me come pick-up time.

“Well if they ever say anything about me, don’t believe a word of it,” I reply, in an attempt at preventative face-saving.

It’s not that I have anything particularly shameful to hide, but you never know what embarrassing piece of fact or fiction is going to come out their mouths.

Speaking of embarrassing, last week when I went to pick up the kids I was met with: “Oh Jai’s been telling me all about watching Embarrassing Bodies. He told me there was a lady on it who couldn’t stop weeing and pooing.”

Jai has only caught a glimpse of the tv show once but is obsessed with it and will take any opportunity even just to bring its title into a sentence.

Quite some time ago while I thought they were happily entertaining themselves in their rooms, I attempted to catch up on some pre-recorded programmes on MySky.

There’s nothing like a dose of Embarrassing Bodies to boost one’s self esteem and I’d just settled down to it when the kids all piled into the lounge.

They skidded to a halt and froze with looks of horror on their faces.

Then: “Ewwwwwwwwww,” they stared aghast at the African woman with the oversize nipples on the screen.

The cat was asleep on my lap and the remote had somehow ended up on the other side of the room so they saw a few other sights before I finally prised myself from the couch and turned it off.

Shortly after their father returned from surfing.

“Dad,” Miss Four screeched. “We saw fannies and willies and big black boobies!”

Her dad looked at me shocked while I recoiled guiltily further into the sofa.

That evening, while out walking with a friend I told her about my childrens’ impromptu lessons of the human body.

“But I suppose it was sort of educational, like teaching them about the human body and that it’s flawed,” I said trying to justify my lack of parental responsibility.

“No Jodi, that’s just sick,” she said matter-of-factly.

She was right. Allowing my kids to watch Embarrassing Bodies was now coming back to haunt me by embarrassing myself.

“Mum you have an embarrassing body!” Master Four yelled in his overloud voice while walking through the playground at pick-up time.

I couldn’t shut him up fast enough.

Toilet Humour

Most youngsters are obsessed with poos and wees and farts and bums and my kids are no exception. I suppose it was inevitable my children would get the toilet humour with abundance. After all I never grew out of it myself. Someone once gave my son a whoopee cushion for his birthday and I got more fun out of it than he did. Long after the kids had lost interest, I’d still be playing jokes on unsuspecting visitors. Once their initial mirth has subsided they realise I’m still convulsing with hilarity. This is when they look at me peculiarly. Hubby just rolls his eyes and waves a dismissive hand.

It’s actually embarrassing but I can’t help it. It must be in my DNA to still find this hilariously funny in my thirties. Well ok, I can’t think of anyone in my immediate family but maybe it skipped a few generations and one of my long-gone ancestors used to roll round clutching their bellies in their black and white petticoated cloaks. Hard to imagine as they never used to crack a smile in their photos - they all looked a rather sullen bunch back in the day.

“Mum I know what I forgot to tell you!” exclaimed Master Six the other day. “Someone farted on the mat.”

He knows this gets my full attention and plays it like a trump card.

“Ohhhh who?” I ask, all ears. I well-remember the hilarity that followed the “pwarppp” as everyone looks around accusingly for the culprit. That single sound has the ability to disrupt a teacher’s well-planned lesson for minutes on end.

And, you see this is why I could never be a teacher. Rather than keeping a straight face and bringing the classful of giggling school children back to order, I’d be rolling round in hysterics on the mat, nose stuffed down my shirt with the rest of them.

Growing up as the only girl surrounded by boys didn’t help. Many school holidays we’d travel to mum’s good friend’s farm in Kaitaia where, between my two brothers, her three boys and their friends, I was vastly outnumbered. They don’t breed them ruder than farm boys and each holiday I’d return home with ruder jokes than the last that, once repeated, would make my friends’ eyes bulge with shock.

The only person I’ve come across who shared my warped sense of humour at its extreme was my good friend from school. Recently we caught up after many years while she was over from Australia. It didn’t take long before we were reminiscing and all the old sayings came out. We laughed away with tears streaming down our faces like old times. And then she stopped. And I didn’t.

She got that look in her eyes.

Okay, time to pull yourself together. “Think of someone dying,” I told myself, which worked for a little while before the bubble of mirth rose once more. Luckily she began laughing again, although I think, by now it was at me.

Because no one my own age seems to share my immature wit I get my kicks out of sometimes incorporating toilet humour into my children’s night time stories. It doesn’t do much for making them sleepy – the four of us are in hysterics (I can just hear my mum clicking her tongue and sighing.) And to save face, I’ve had to teach them here about the difference between private humour and public.

But I’ll have to grow out of it myself before there’s any likelihood my kids will and the chances are looking slim. Anyway there’s nothing like having a good old belly laugh with someone. Maybe, like the solemn-looking black and white ancestor who was obviously hiding something, it can be my legacy.

Birds and the Bees (round two)

Oh help, the birds and the bees question has come up again!

And this time Master Six wouldn't settle for "A seed just grew into a baby in the mummy's tummy".

"Well the father sheep put it in the mother sheep," I expanded.

"No, ‘cos sheep aren't alive!"

"What?"

"I mean, they don't have hands like people so how did the sheep put the seed in there?"

Is it too soon to tell a six-year-old that his willy did it?

Anyway I did tell him about the willy and they all cracked up (the twins were listening in the back seat so there was no escaping).

But then of course he wanted to know how the baby sheep came out of the mummy’s tummy and was rather disgusted to learn of their mode of exit.

“Does that mean that real babies come out their mum’s bums?” he asked, eyes wide with incredulation.

“Mmmhmm,” I nodded looking straight ahead wondering how on earth the conversation had got this far.

With a look of disgust, he turned toward the window for most of the journey.

Then: “So did all my friends come out of their mum’s bottoms?”

“Well I don’t know,” As we were nearing the school gates, I was keen to shut the conversation down.

“Did Samuel? (Name changed to save face.)

“I don’t know.”

He then proceeded to reel off a list of all his friends’ names in a bid to learn if they suffered the same entry into the world.

Okay, time to kick in with the privacy talk. A hasty lesson on what is okay to talk about in public ensued.

But that had opened the floodgates. I copped a volley of questions all the way home from the twins. I knew I had probably dealt with it all wrong and made a mental note to look up how to field birds and the bees questions when I got home.

For information on how to deal with these questions read "Birds and the Bees - Part One"

Birds and the Bees

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There’s no way I’m ready for the birds and the bees talk. My oldest is only five but the other day the subject was broached when I was re-reading a childhood book about kittens in a bid at remembering how to teach our new addition to stop depositing in the shower. Noticing Cade looking over my shoulder I decided to read it aloud and every thing was fine until I got to the speying and neutering page.

“These cats have had the same operation Jesse had the other day,” I said.

“Why did they have to have it too?” he asked.

“Because remember I told you Jesse needed an operation to stop him wandering off to find girl cats and that would stop him getting into fights or run over? And these girl cats have a different operation to stop them having kittens.”

Lower lip starting to tremble: “But why can’t they have kittens?”

“Because if everyone didn’t give their cats the operation there’d be too many kittens and some people don’t look after them and they have so many they dump them.”

“So, does the operation kill the kittens in the mummy cat’s tummy?”

Oh heck.

Some fast thinking then: “No, the kittens aren’t already in there, the operation the boy cat had stops the boy cat putting seeds into the girl cat which grow into kittens.” I can expand on that further down the track.

This was accepted and I thought I had got away with it until later that day. We were driving into town when he asked out of the blue: “Mummy do you write stories on your computer and give them to the newspaper?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“So are you called a ju .. jur …jurnlist?”

“That’s right!” I answered impressed. “How do you know that?”

“My teacher told me when I told her you write stories.”

At that point we drove past my childhood home so, making the most of his interest, I pointed it out and proceeded to tell him an edited version of my life story.

“And then we came back from overseas, bought the house you live in now and got married,” I finished.

“And then did I pop out of your tummy?” he asked.
”That’s right.”

Pause then: “So did you just leave Jai and Jayla in there?”

Oh bugger.

“How about we leave some of these questions for your daddy to answer,” I resorted. “I think you’ve already learnt enough for today.”

He nodded in agreement and, thank goodness, let the subject be.

 # According to family therapist and parenting coach Diane Levy we shouldn’t rely on “The Chat” as with all knowledge children should be acquiring information in small digestible bits at a rate that matches their ability to understand and in a context that is happening naturally.

“It is a good idea if your children can have this information before they are five or six.  That way, you take charge of it before their friends can tell them. By the time they are old enough to identify reproduction with their own bodies (about seven or eight), they don’t feel betrayed because they feel that they have always known.”

Diane, who is a tv presenter, magazine panellist and author says to start early giving toddlers a vocabulary of body parts that will be familiar to them when the time comes to explain reproduction.

Sooner or later you may be asked, “How did I get into Mummy’s tummy?” That’s the easy question.  “You started as a tiny seed and you grew and grew and grew.” And then you may get the big question, “How did the seed get there?”  If you can manage it, just give the straight answer.”

Diane also recommends age-appropriate books.

“Most children are fascinated about how their body works. Expect your children to want these “stories” over and over again. As with all other books, they will need to hear them many, many times until they have integrated the information.”

More information on this topic can be found in Diane Levy’s book Of course I love you…NOW GO TO YOUR ROOM!