Camden: I opened the back door to take the trash out the other day, and Camden said, “Makai outside?” (Makai is my parents’ dog that they brought with them when they visited for Thanksgiving a week and a half ago). I told him that Makai wasn’t in the back yard, that she went home with Nana and Papa. Camden tilted his head to the side (he does this when he’s not happy) and said, “No Nana and Papa, Makai outside!” He just didn’t understand that the dog wasn’t still in our back yard, since that was the last place he saw her.
Eli: I was giving the boys a shower the other night and Eli looked at my belly and asked, “Is Courtland going to pop out right now?” I told him that my belly wasn’t going to pop, and that Courtland wasn’t ready to come out yet. So he asked, “Why is your tummy so big then?” And I explained that the baby is growing, and that he will keep growing bigger until he is ready to come out.
Kolby: When we went to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square with our friends, the Barkers, Kolby had to use the bathroom. So I took Kolby and Eli and Miriam brought her two little girls inside to use the restroom. I always take the boys into the women’s restroom with me since they aren’t old enough to go into the men’s by themselves yet. On our way out of the bathroom, Kolby asked what the tampon dispenser on the wall was. Thinking that I would just be matter-of-fact and answer him clearly so as not to make a big deal out of it, I just told him it was for tampons. He asked what tampons were, and I told him that they were for girls and that he didn’t have to worry about them. Kolby can get pretty frustrated when he feels like we are not answering his questions to his satisfaction, and he started to get frustrated with me, asking me again what tampons were for. So I told him that they were for periods, hoping that would satisfy him. Of course not. He then demanded to know what periods were, and for the life of me I couldn’t think of a good, simple, quick explanation of a menstrual period that would be appropriate for a 5-year-old boy to hear (and for me to be telling him, in front of all the other kids, in a public restroom). Miriam, of course, was just laughing through this whole conversation. So, after Kolby asked me a few times what a period was, and I delayed (hoping that he would forget his question), I finally just told him that I couldn’t think of a good answer and I’d have to think about it and talk to him about it later. Luckily that seemed to appease him for the time being. We’ll see if he remembers to ask me about it again in the future.
