Superhero, The Tampon Warrior

I will affectionately look back on this week as The Week Of The Tampon.

It started innocently enough.

A confluence of events, if you will.

I had recently planted a few What Is Happening To My Body? type of books around the house in the hopes that I wouldn’t actually have to have a face to face about pubic hair it might garner some conversation of the puberty type.

A few days ago, Ruby who is 8 and on Autism spectrum (which as I write this strikes me as something that should come with a backyard rainbow and unicorn), told our babysitter that she was worried about getting her period.

Apparently her best friend had filled her in on some of the finer details of getting The Period during their last sleepover. Our babysitter filled in some other facts when I was at work.

The next morning, as I was slinging breakfast, Ruby said, “Is it TRUE that you LET Dad put his penis in your PAGINA?!!”

Oh shit, here we go. I know we need to talk about this, but really, right now, over waffles?

Lucas looked up, intrigued.

Theo yelled, “Pagina!”

Then, before I could formulate an answer, Ruby said, “And when you get your period, do you REALLY put a piece of cotton up your butt?”

Lucas, ever the family scholar, said, “No, no, no. It goes in the vagina. It’s on page 14 of that book with pictures of penises and uteruses.”

(I see who has been doing his homework.)

Theo yelled, “Utusssuses!!”

And so we had a short conversation clarifying the arrangement of the various holes and their functions and how it is best to reserve use of those holes for, preferably, college or even graduate school. And how they must be protected from disease and the creation of new life.

By the time I was done explaining fallopian tubes and the vas deferens (also known as the ductus deferens, Latin for “carrying-away vessel”) the kids were mollified or at the very least clearly bored by my dry and scientific anatomical explanation.

Fast forward to this morning.

I was trying to take care of business in the bathroom, which as any parent (and pet owner) knows, is nearly impossible to do in peace. I had to leave the door open at least wide enough so that Theo could hear me, but narrow enough to keep the dog and cat out.

As usual Theo made his way into the bathroom. He saw my box of tampons and immediately had to investigate.

“Whazzz dis?” he asked while poking me in the leg with a Light Flow. “I want da candy!”

“Oh, no, honey,” I said. “That is a tampon. It doesn’t go in your mouth.”

“Where go?” he implored while chewing on the paper.

“It goes in the vagina, sweetie. Not in your mouth.” I said, trying not to giggle.

“I want da bagina! Open da bagina!” he yelled.

Good lord, this one is going to need a lot of work on Manners Around Vaginas before he hits puberty.

So I took the tampon out of the paper wrapper. The kid’s eyes seriously lit up. Suddenly I had a bad feeling. A feeling that The Marble might be looking at some, uh, stiff competition. How would I explain this one to the preschool teachers.

“Ohhhhhhh, THREE baginas!” (He had already pulled the two parts of the tampon apart and before I knew it had run off with them.)

I got dressed, came out of the bathroom and found Theo chasing the dog around with the tampon parts while yelling, ”Supahero! Supahero the bagina!”

And thus, a new Superhero was born.

And now I’m hiding the condoms. And other unmentionables.