Wednesday, March 24, 2010

I loathe the smell of old spice in the morning

My boy continues to take family life in stride. He is more than willing to talk with me about it. In fact, we talk about little else.

We spent some time with the family of one of his classmates over the weekend, and when she heard me chiding my boy about his badonkadonk lessons, she told me that her son doesn't even want to admit to her that he has a badonkadonk.

Apparently some of the kids in his class are having a difficult time with the subject matter, and my boy is very judgemental about their reaction. Does this make him well adjusted, or weird?

One of my greatest fears in this rite of passage was that my boy would come home and tell all the gory details to his little sister, my baby. The innocent one (stop laughing, people who know her). But this has hardly been the case, he will not discuss it with her at all, and takes great pride in refusing to speak with me about matters of family life unless she is out of earshot. She is fine with this, she doesn't want to hear it. She only gets bent out of shape if she thinks we're having fun with the conversation, like when I could not stop laughing over this page in his "your changing body" booklet:


How creepy is that kid's smirk? I positively busted a gut, and my boy sorta kinda got why I found it so funny, so he cracked up as well, and my poor clueless girl became annoyed.

This booklet was sponsored by none other than Old Spice , and included alongside this gem was my boy's first and very own wee red cannister of that vile concoction.

You would think it was liquid gold the way he covets that shit.

The first night he had it, it was burning a hole in his armpits. He kept sniffing the air around himself and asking "What stinks?!"

Me: It is YOU who stinks
He: Should I put on some deoderant?
Me: You might consider taking a shower.

Yes, of course he stinks! He stinks of boy and sweat and dirt and skateboard and hair. He only bathes when coerced!

But after his shower, he gleefully fulfilled his manhood dream of applying the Old Spice. He asked if I wanted to watch. He giggled the whole time.

At the end of the first week of Family Life (how much more can there be??) he said that he had watched a very long film about how babies are born, and although it was interesting to see the baby change and grow, he was disappointed because just when it was about to be born, the day ended and they had to go home.

Me: You wanted to see the baby being born?
He: Yeah!
Me: You know where they come out?
He: Yes, mahhhhm.

On Monday, they got to watch the birth.

He: That looks like it really hurts.
Me: ................... crickets ..................
He: Did it hurt when I was born?
Me: I had surgery when you and your sister were born, remember?
He: Did it hurt?
Me: Well, they gave me a shot in my spine so it didn't hurt, I just felt the tugging when they pulled you out. It was kind of weird but it didn't hurt.
He: The lady in the movie should have gotten a shot.
Me: ................crickets...............

A few minutes later, little sister chimed in:

She: (A boy at school) has two dads, how did that work?
He: Adoption. duh. Men can't have babies.
She: So why is the Dad even involved?
Me: ......................crickets.......................
She: Oh I know, to love the mom and help her. Right?
He and Me: ...............crickets....................

He: Where do they get the adopted babies?
Me: If a woman is pregnant but can't or doesn't want to have a baby, she can look for another family to be its parents.
He: Did anyone ever try to give you a baby?
Me: Well, no - we never tried to adopt a baby, people who really want to adopt babies have to fill out applications and prove that they have a good home and stuff.
He: Do you get the baby for free?
Me: Ummmm, no... you have to pay the lawyers and the woman's doctors and..... I don't know.

He: Mom?
Me: (cringing) yeah?
He: Why would a man and woman do “all that” if they don’t even want a baby?

......crickets!.........

I came across this photo by chance the other day. It's timely for the season, but it's also the face I imagine when I visualize him in Family Life:



9 comments:

Pickles and Dimes said...

Old Spice?!? HAHHAHA. I picture your boy in those weird ads of theirs: Look at me, now look down, now look at me again. I'm on a horse...

His expression in that photo is awesome. :)

P.S. In junior high, during the class where they discussed how girls get their period, one boy in my class got kicked out because he couldn't stop laughing.

Anonymous said...

I remember having that "why would people do it at all if they don't even want kids" conversation with some friends one day when I was about 10. We couldn't figure it out. One girl told us some married people have to do it every day. That made for a very thoughtful afternoon.

Sara said...

Great post, Jacquie! "Crickets" will forever be in my head when I can't quite fill an uncomfortable silence with the girls! And OMG, thank you Old Spice for the creepy kid in the pamphlet. Wonder if that kid new what he was posing for....?

Family life is a bit of old hat in our house seeing as how we had to preempt that whole subject when we encountered the, ahem, "transaction" taking place in a car next to our neighbor's house. Nice.

Me, You, or Ellie said...

Ha ha ha ha. This is hilarious, Jacquie. (But badonkadonk? I don't hear that one everyday!)

I love that your boy is so greedy with his knowledge. AND that he invited you to watch while he applied his very first Old Spice. AND that he wanted to see the actual birth. He's a gem, that one.

Beth

not a fan of old spice in PA said...

that's the expression of a boy who wants to know exactly how that egg came to be.
have him call me if he wants a play by play of a drug-free vaginal birth...I could probably make him feel the pain :)
Judging from all he's learned in a week, I think it puts our school's curriculum to shame.

Rita said...

That was hilarious. I can't believe Old Spice is sponsoring our kids' sex ed now. I mean, Axe you could see, but Old Spice? What do they know about sex? Nobody gets laid wearing Old Spice!

Me, You, or Ellie said...

This is hilarious, Jacquie. Isn't it funny that thinking about sex is so entirely absent from one's life for a certain number of years, and then a threshold is crossed, and then one only thinks about sex? For like the next 60 years or so?

Your girl is still, clearly, entirely, in category 1.

Love it. Love Beth's comment, too.

xxEllie

(p.s. Old Spice? Seriously?)

Me, You, or Ellie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
L. Shepherd said...

Oh man, the talk. I had to give one of them the talk so I bought a video from Amazon and hid in the kitchen until it was over. No questions? Great.