The Spontaneous Sex Talk

(that blog title should get the search engines pointed my way!)

So we had a big event at the Pope house the other night. And it came from out of the blue, thanks to my always spontaneous wife. We had just finished dinner, but 3 of us were still at the table – Traci, myself, and Ethan (our 8 year old). As he got up to leave Traci blurted out to him, “Ethan, do you know what sex is?”

Talk about a question that’ll turn heads and make ears perk up!! Ethan quickly said “no” and tried to escape to the family room. But this was hopeless. I knew that Traci had some kind of plan and that Ethan was in for it.

As she got him to sit back down she asked, “Do you friends ever talk to you about sex?”

Even before the sentence was finished Ethan said the fastest “no” that I’ve ever heard.

Traci then proceeded to explain a lot, in a whole lot more detail than I would’ve. To my credit I only busted out laughing once (on the outside). Some of the highlights were:

- Traci asking Ethan where babies come from . . . his answer: The Hospital . . . (That's my boy!!)

- Traci asking how babies got in Mommy’s tummy

- The repeated use of unmentionable, but completely appropriate anatomical and biological words

- The always useful question, “What’s the difference between male horses and female horses?” This was the one where I failed to suppress my laughter.

- Ethan trying to get up and leave a bunch of times.

- I got some words in at the end, and got to ask the question of my now all-knowledgeable 8 year old, “Why do people have sex?” Now I could think of some pretty funny, and some pretty sad answers to that, but he gave the right ones. You can call Traci if you don’t know the “right” answers. Don’t call me, cuz I’ll probably just give you the funny ones.

Poor Ethan was finally allowed to leave . . . I hope he eats dinner with us again someday . . .