Rocks in the Road, and How Babies Start. I'm Diversified.

Does anyone sell protective bubbles big enough to put my car in? I'm in the market.

It rained today, and I was in Bakersfield. I had to come home, and the road I take tends to have rock slides (and it's the safest road). I slowed down to 35-40mph and avoided the first group of smallish rocks easily. It helped that I noticed the two cars a hundred yards in front of me braked in a weird spot, so I knew to watch for something. No big deal. The big deal that made my heart hurt was coming around a corner and seeing two big rocks in my lane. Which was *okay*, because I was driving slow enough to have complete control of my car. I went into the other lane and back into mine, explaining to Will that it is in fact okay to cross the double yellow lines to avoid a crash. (Legally, I'm not sure it's ever okay, but Ryan has told me to do whatever is required to avoid crashing. Especially head-on. But I digress.) The heart hurting part was seeing the dust in the air around the boulders. The dust. Like, they had just fallen. And instantly my brain goes to the story of the girl Ryan knew in high school who was driving on said road with her boyfriend and a rock fell on the car and killed her. And holy crap, what would I have done if that rock would have fallen on my car... and what if I was three seconds faster... and it's a good thing I used that turn out earlier and decided to take it slowly... too many what-ifs and could haves and stress. Every one is fine, but my brain and heart were not for a little while. (Neither were Kacy's. She was just as worried as I was.)

I just talked to Ryan, and he said the road is closed because the rocks kept coming.

So, dear family and friends, I will be diligently checking the weather before driving to the big city. If if calls for rain or snow, I'm staying home.
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On a funny note, I got to answer Will's question of, "Hey Mom, I know babies come from your tummy, but how do they start there?" while driving to my grandma's house for Thanksgiving dessert. I had just explained to him the night before how babies get out of my tummy. Kacy already knew that part. I haven't used any terminology yet with my kids, because I myself can't say the word that rhymes with the planet Venus. Just can't do it. And as far as girl parts go, no, not everything down there is the V word, and when I worked at the preschool many moons ago it irritated me that parents thought that teaching their three year olds to call girl part V's was right. There are LOTS more parts down there than just that, and for that, you could call it the birth canal. You certainly don't pee with it... see? That's why it bothered me. AND because three year olds will use aforementioned terminology at the preschool playground, in the grocery store check-out line, and in the middle of singing "Happy Birthday" to your grandma. They just don't know WHAT is appropriate WHEN. ANYWAY, in our house, because I can't say the boy part word without getting hugely embarrassed, and because girls have WAY more parts that just a V, we call everything a butt. "Stop dancing around naked, no one wants to see your butt!" "Pull up your undies BEFORE you come out of the bathroom so we don't have to see your butt!" This is said 100% of the time to the boys, who like to put undies on their head and dance around shaking their booties saying, "I'm naked, I'm naked!" before getting into either a) the shower, or b) their PJ's right after their shower. This vocabulary has worked so far in our house. To explain how babies come out, I took a cue from Jocelyn and how she explained it to her boys. Something like, "You know how pee comes out of one hole in your body, and poop comes out of the other? Girls have a third hole in their bodies where babies come out of." And without fail, both Kacy and Will have said, "Oh." And then they went on their way. Kacy does know that sometimes they cut your tummy, like if the baby is upside down. Back to the question of how babies start in the tummy. I frowned. That's what I do when I'm thinking. I had no idea what to say. So, I did what I could: "Well, it takes a mommy and a daddy, and they decide to have a baby, and then they do." That didn't work, because Will asks, "But HOW does the baby start Mom?" So, I resort to: "Hey Will, how do YOU think babies start in tummies?" I was hoping this would give me a starting off point. He said he had no idea, that's why he was asking me. So, here's how it went, as we were driving down the freeway... Your body is made up of these little teeny tiny things called cells. There are different cells that make different parts of you, like hair cells make hair, eyeball cells make eyeballs, skin cells make skin. There are also baby making cells. Girls have egg cells in them. Girl chickens, girl dogs, girl people, all girls animals have egg cells. (This is where Kacy inserts the fact that girl dolphins also have egg cells, and since they are mammals they also give birth to live young and they feed their babies milk. No joke. I say "Yes, Kacy, that's right.") And then I say that all boys have cells in them called sperm cells. Boy animals, and boy people. When you are a mommy and a daddy, you decide you want to have a baby, and these cells come together and make a baby. The baby starts out teeny-tiny and grows this big and this big and this big, and when it's big enough to be born, it is." He said "Oh." Kacy said, "What's that S word again Mom? Sperm?" Yup, she's putting that in her word bank.

Pretty soon I will tell Kacy and Will what the parts are really called, but for now they are on a need to know basis. They are old enough now to respect the terminology and use it appropriately, but all in good time. I'm in no rush to have to verbalize the words I've studied for hours on the walls of the Dr. while waiting for the OB/GYN the last four kids. Hey, I got bored after five solid years of appointments... and I've always been a wall reader. Eventually I'm going to have to give them the talk... but for now, I love the ignorance. I need some time to think about it. But as this year is almost over already (!!!) and Kacy is getting so big, with Will right behind her, I've only got a few years, max! Years are going by so quickly right now. (If they are going by this fast right now, how fast are they going to feel when I'm 50 or 80?)