Little Seymour Number Two exited our makeshift bathroom yesterday evening whilst brushing her teeth, holding aloft a tampon.
“What’s this?” she queried, fully expecting me to tell her that it is some kind of compressed, expandable flannel, or a lipstick applicator, or perhaps even a bullet.
I took a breath. I was busy faffing with WhatsApp, yet despite their ability to utterly ignore me at every other twunting opportunity, there were two other Little Seymours gazing intently and quizzically at the offending article, as if they somehow knew it might be… compromising. I had a decision to make, and if I took too long to make it, the moment might pass…
What the fuck should I say?
Luckily, I was fortified by a drop of wine. It was late. I had wrangled Brownies, dropped off Cubs and finished with Judo Joe. School was out for the night, and the Little Seymours were nearly in bed…. nearly.
Normally, as something of a prude, I skirt around certain issues. I try not to lie, but who wants to explain the ins and outs of sanitary products to small children? Not I, dear reader. I’d rather eat my own socks.
Yet a wave of bravado engulfed me last evening, and before I could stop and think about the consequences, I declared… “You shove it up your bum.”
They didn’t believe me.
We had a brief correction where we established it wasn’t for your actual bum: that would cause a whole load of problems. An animated Boy Seymour pointed out exactly what such problems might be. I intervened and added that godawful term – “for grown-up ladies” , and grimaced as I did so, but didn’t really want any of my babies taking the “shoving it up your bum” notion and running with it.
Boy couldn’t have been more delighted with the topic in hand. He stopped on the ladder he was supposed to be climbing to The Shelf and thence bed, and assumed he knew the facts. “They’re for when you’re pregnant,” he declared.
My bravery continued. I was on a roll. “No,” I said, “the opposite.” And proceeded to dish out a short, sharp, highly unscientific yet vaguley accurate description of the expulsion of substances from a female body in the absence of a pregnancy. I could not have been more proud of myself.
Little Seymour Number Two eyed up the item still help aloft like the Sword of Greyskull in her hand. Her face was, by now, contorted in a gurn. She was giggling, and not really sure how to proceed. Clearly the idea of shoving things in unspeakable places was not something she wanted to discuss further.
I carried on my PSHE lesson regardless by reassuring the assembled crowd of Seymours that other products are available, more nappy-esque inventions that also save you from embarrassing leakages. Then I found myself worrying on behalf of my daughters about the choices and trials ahead. But then I remembered! Nowadays, adult “nappies” and shoving things up your bits are not the only options. Magic Pants have landed, and I couldn’t be more happy about that.
I am not sure if those three minutes in The Shed last night will have had a positive effect on my children, a negative one or no impact whatsoever at all. All I know is that I didn’t run from the issue (did I mention I am very proud?), and before too long, Boy Seymour was back down his ladder, on the toilet and simultaneously rummaging for more embarrassing things that he could ask about. “What’s this?” he asked repeatedly as I tried to pretend I couldn’t hear him. “What’s this thing with a handle and spikes?” he elaborated. “What is it in this box?”
He emerged five minutes later with my treat to myself – a derma roller, purchased on a whim in a fit of vanity. He’d taken it out of its box and was rolling it all over his back and shoulders, saying ouch.
No doubt he expected me to tell him you shove that up your arse, too.
0 Comments