Thursday, April 27, 2006

Just Wait Until It's His Turn........

I had to have the most awkward of conversation with Mr X tonight. It left me fairly exasperated.

I sat him down and pulled out The Book. The one I'll be using this weekend when I have that talk I'm dreading with the Girl.

"It's time. She needs to know. Is there anything you think we should absolutely cover or leave out?"

He turned bright red, squirmed, and stuttered "Now?"

"This weekend. She wants to know how babies are made and she's not buying that thing about eating a special baby capsule."

He got up and paced the room.

He started to get a little pale.

"You don't have to be in the room with me when I talk to her."

"Oh thank G-d!"

He's still a little nervous though. I catch him glancing at her and then shaking his head and frowning.

She asked if something was wrong with him.

"Yes. He has a daughter."

And that's it. He and a friend, who has 3 daughters, have a plan for the first time a guy shows up for one of the girls. They intend to answer the door in jeans, muscle t-shirts and scowls. They're both big guys. They can be very intimidating. I pity any boy who has to face them. I pity the girls because there is little chance of them getting out if their dads are home.

I look at her and think about that night in the hospital when I lay in the bed beside her and she just looked at me. She didn't make a peep. Didn't move. Just blink and stare.
I got wrapped up in that image of her. My baby. My first born. I let myself forget that eventually she would grow up and need to know things about her body and sex.
Now that time is here and it's not that the idea of telling her about it is horrible. It's the thought that she's not a baby anymore.
Every year it gets harder and harder to keep her from the things that will hurt her.
Her first heartbreak. First crush. The first time some other girl calls her a name (and I'm going to find it very difficult not to find that girl and beat her senseless for it just as I'm sure it will be hard not to run over little Johnny for breaking her heart).
I know that a large part of my fear, as mildly irrational as it may be, is that she's growing too far away from me. Because that's how it was with my mom.
The older I got, the less she wanted to have to do with me. The farther apart we grew until one day, she was just that lady who gave birth to me.
I don't want that to happen with us. I want the kind of relationship with Grown-up Girl X that I always wanted with the kind of mom I wished I had.

And ok, I am choking a little at the thought of having a sex talk with my baby girl.


I take comfort in knowing that Mr X will someday have to have the Talk with Hurricane.