Boys versus Girls

(bathroom talk ahead, skip to the bottom for videos if you'd rather.)

So, we are your basic hippies when it comes to nudity and freedom. I mean, everyone wears clothes around the house, but both of us will still shower with the kids when we have to, and they see us changing in the mornings. And, as little kids do, they can't let us go to the bathroom without coming in to keep us company. We figured when it started getting weird, we'd stop. But Ellie seems completely immune to any differences between boys and girls in the diaper area, so we'd just stuck to the general "everyone has privates, and they're private" discussion.

Until a few weeks ago when Ellie told me "mommy, when I'm 53, I'm going to pee standing up like daddy." I figured it was time to jump into a larger discussion, and told her that no, she couldn't pee like daddy, because daddy is a boy and he has a penis, and she is a girl so she has a vagina. She took it pretty well, and just sort of left it at that. Facts are facts. And then later in the week we were on a run when I hear her yelling in the stroller "ADAM! I'M GOING TO TICKLE YOUR PENIS!" Cue a screeching halt and a quick discussion about how no, we do not tickle there, because that's Adam's privates and they're private. Still, she likes to point out as loudly as possible any time he gets near himself. Bathtime? "ADAM'S TOUCHING HIS PENIS!" Diaper changes? "ADAM, DON'T TOUCH YOUR PENIS!" It is her new favorite word. So glad we had this discussion. As a bonus, the other day when I told her to leave her own privates alone, or go into her room, she said "I want to touch my privates with other people!" It's hard to teach kids to have some dang manners. It's also hard to keep a straight face through all of this lesson teaching.

But moving on. It's been a million degrees here this week with the Santa Anas, so yesterday Ellie and I went in the pool to cool off. The pool was not exactly warm, and we only lasted about fifteen minutes, but they were fifteen pretty good minutes. Check out this fearless girl!

She starts swimming lessons again on Monday. Twice a week for the next two months, without having a parent or grandparent in the pool with her. I anticipate tears, but she has already told all of us that this summer, she's going to learn to swim without floaties.

Adam put his legs into the spa and splashed a little, and then pooped, so he got a bath as well, then spend the rest of the night drooling and spilling food all over himself. Good thing we couldn't be bothered to put clothes back on him.

He is such a funny little muffin. He can now push himself up to standing by himself, without holding on to anything, and he'll take a step here and there, but if you ask him to walk to you, he immediately gets down and crawls, no matter how close you are. I can't wait until he just takes off running - probably not too long now!