…for my eleven year old.

Sunday, we went to the lake. We spent hours out in the Texas sun and have matching sunburns to show for it. And we were using SPF 85 sunscreen reapplied three times in four hours. Anyway, I was holding on to my brother’s dog, Maddie, who is the mother of my boxer.

EmoBoy (my eleven year old) notices Maddie’s cooch is somewhat… mutilated. Hey, you know, if you give birth to two litters of 8-9 puppies each, yours would be a bit mutilated too.

Anyway, I’ve had the “where do babies come from?” talk with my kids. Both of them. Several times. They ask the questions. I answer. I’m not going to be ashamed of a natural process like giving birth. I might blush a little when it comes to how Daddy’s sperm gets inside Mom’s egg. That’s only because I spent years as a kid wondering that question when no one would answer.

So, EmoBoy asks me why hers is like that when our boxer’s isn’t.

I answer, “That’s where the puppies come out.”

Sorry, pic is a little fuzzy.

At this point, EmoBoy is completely floored by this revelation. He can’t fathom that 16 little puppies came out of that hole. So, being the honest, blunt person that I am, I tell him exactly how it happens. His little eyes just get bigger… and bigger.

I notice it, so I ask, “How did you think they came out?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I mean, I knew they came out the back.”

My son, ladies and gentlemen.

He thought the dog pooped out the babies.

I talked to him a little bit more after that. His reasoning was logical, but it didn’t quite fit into the mold and so, hence his confusion. He knew there was a difference between girls and boys, but I don’t think it really ever sunk in. For him, he’s got a pee-er and a poop-er. He knew girls must have those too. But he never really considered that girls had that extra hole.

Boys. They can be so oblivious.

I THINK I have explained it appropriately to him now… I think he gets it now, and (probably) he’s appropriately scarred for life now.

And just in case you’re wondering, it is easier to explain the whole birthing process thing with dogs as the subject rather than with humans.