Stop Kissing Boys

I was putting my daughter to bed.  She and my ten year old niece, Summer, were sharing one of the queen beds in our tiny sound side cottage.  Beatrice was trying all her tricks to stay awake, bathroom twice, thirsty for water, can she sleep in my bed. 

Anyway, I was tucking her in and I assured her that I would be in the next room watching TV with her daddy.  She asked me why and I told her because I am a grown-up and she said, “grown ups can do whatever they want.”  And I thought about this and said, “Yes, yes we can and it is awesome.”  And you know what…it is awesome.  So what about all the other tiny details of grown up life, like a job, taxes, debt, the realization of disease, death, marriage, divorce, cheating, lying, addictions, assholes and killers. 

I do have total freedom.  And when you really think about it from a six year-olds mind well, it made me want to kiss her little forehead, grab my pink, striped, J crew zip-hoodie and run down the street to the nearest keg party…but then the strange thing was that I had no desire to run to a party.  No, that thought actually repulsed me (until the following evening). But, I think that repulsion was left from the first time I was at this beach, at age 18.  It was during beach week and I walked into every single restaurant trying to convince someone to hire me to be a waitress so I could move here. I didn’t.  Or it could be from the time I came here when I was 20 and my fake ID was taken because I did not know my “sign” or actually, my name…long story.

Anyway, I liked where I was.  Bee interrupted my thoughts to add that she was not having a job and I said I agreed with that, jobs definitely get in the way of fun. She then added that she didn’t want a kid.  I said that was ok but she insisted that she was NOT having a kid and asked emphatically about how could we make it so that she never had one.

I asked her why and she said because “I am NOT having needles and I am not having someone cut a baby out of my belly.”  I said, “Um, OK, well, we can talk about this later.” (In the mean time all I could think about was the only person who Bee knows who had a C-section is her Aunt T!) She said, “No, what can I do.”  She was really freaking out so I said, “Well, you would have to have organs removed”, but then quickly realized that was not comprehensible and scary and just wrong of me to say to her. Summer giggled.  I said, “You can take medicine but we are ending this conversation now and it is TBCont…” until she is at least 12.  She seemed ok with that as I started to walk away but then she sat up and said, “But how do they get there in my belly?”  Summer was really giggling…and I was wondering if she knew these answers at age ten?  I grabbed her stuffed cow and tucked it next to Bee and said we would have that conversation in 6 or 7 years. But, in the mean time she needed to stop kissing boys. 

I think this could hold her off the boy craze until she is at least 12…right…am I right?

E

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