Propellers and Penises: Not Remotely Related

I knew the question was coming, and it popped out of Kostyn’s mouth the other night at bathtime.

“Mommy, can I see your penis?”

The boys were pointing proudly at theirs, and apparently I was next in line. I breezily explained that I didn’t have a penis because I was a girl, and only boys have penises. All splashing and giggling stopped. They stared at me like I was from another planet.

“But, Mommy, how do you pee??”

I'd never hidden my anatomy from them, and they'd been in the bathroom with me countless times. (Hello, like every time I've peed or tried to distract them with Sesame Street long enough to jump in the shower for the last three years....) We'd talked more than once about how girls sit to pee and boys stand. But beyond that, I guess they'd never really paid much attention to me. So my answer that night straddled (ahem) the fence between clinical terms and kiddie language. It was maybe a bit vague, but I thought I did OK for an unplanned introduction to the whole gender thing.

After today I’m not so sure.

We were reading an I Spy book this afternoon and Kostyn saw a picture of a single propeller plane and called it a helicopter. “No, that’s an airplane,” I said.

He pointed to the propeller and said, “It’s a helicopter!”

So I explained that airplanes are similar to helicopters, but they're not the same. That sometimes they have propellers on the front, but helicopters have propellers (rotors) on top, not in front.

He thought for a moment, then said, “It’s a boy helicopter.”

Making the leap in his analogy, I can only hope and assume he doesn’t think girls have penises on their heads. This parenting thing is getting trickier...