Gasp ... And Then She Said It.

WARNING: Explicit language.

Casey and I made a pact long ago to always tell Macy the truth, even when that means we have to admit embarassing & not so pleasant things to her. Thus far in her life, we've upheld that pact and do not plan to deviate from it anytime soon. She knows babies come from vaginas (yes, we call parts the proper names when explaining) she knows the alternative is a c-section but she doesn't know HOW babies are made and frankly ... I'd like to keep it that way right now!

How? You might ask, does she know where babies come from but not how they're made? Well, we tell her just enough information. We answer her questions but don't offer anymore information than necessary. There may be a point in her life where background information or further explanation is needed for certain things but to this point it's the facts ma'am only the facts.

Every parent dreads the day their child comes home to ask about something-typically inappropriate, they've learned outside their home. I expected to answer questions about where babies come from. I expected to hear "Susie said the S word", I expected to explain why people go to jail (which I've had to do already this week--because so & so's Dad spent all his money on drugs and they only had one dollar left to get his Dad out of jail because his Dad was in jail for doing drugs), I expected to explain favoritism, nerd, stupid, fairness, responsibility, good character, I even expected to explain divorce. What I didn't expect was to explain THE mother of all words.

Macy wasn't even in the car 5 minutes when she said, "Mom, what does the middle finger mean?" See, I try really hard to get by with the simplest of answers but its becoming increasingly more difficult! "Well, it's just middle man. You know where is middle man, where is middle man, there he is, there he is ..." She laughed. "Nooo, it's a bad word. What does it mean?" Crap! I thought. Now what? What do I say?? I swallowed a big gulp, said a nano-second prayer for the right words to say and replied, "Well Mace, it's a really really bad word. It's so bad, I don't even want to say it. It's not a nice word at all & it's something you should never repeat." I really didn't know what to say! I couldn't bring myself to say THAT word. "Well, can I guess what it is? Would you tell me then?" Sigh, "she knows" I thought. "She already knows." Ugh. So I said, "Of course. I'll tell you."

She was somewhat reserved & hesitated a smidge, shrugged and wincingly said "ffff..uck. Is that what it means? Fuck you?" OH.MY.STARS! Did she just say that?? "Yes. Yes Macy, that's what it means.", "How'd you learn that?", "Somebody said that the other day at school." "It's a bad word, huh mom?" Here would be a good time to reintroduce good character. Ouch.

Aging

Elderly people often take a large assortments of medication, so much they often have those pill separators allowing them to plan their medications by day. Now, I just can't imagine those folks enjoy taking all that medication but I'd venture to guess they realize they're extending their precious time on Earth, they see its necessity.

When those same elderly folks were oh, let's say 5 years old I bet they fought their mommas & daddies tooth and nail when taking medication. "This tastes bad.", "I can't swallow this, it gags me.", "I don't like it.", etc. Their desire to get rid of the symptoms wasn't as great as their disdain for the medication. They knew it was relative to get rid of their illness but they weren't mature enough to understand that taste or gagging reflex was temporary.

But then they aged & maturity set in. They realized swallowing that nasty medicine was necessary. Macy Walker has now realized this and begrudgingly requested cough medicine. On her own. Without my suggestion.

Wow, maturity.