About a month ago, shortly before our second son’s arrival, I had just gotten home from the gym. It was just me and our 2-year-old son hanging out at the house. I had turned on his favorite superhero Netflix show for that week. He was content so I ran upstairs to change out of my sweaty workout clothes. 

Since it was just the two of us at home, I skipped the shower for the time being and opted to jump into some sweats. Well let’s be honest there was no jumping since I was extremely pregnant. It was more like slowly squeeze myself into whatever was comfortable and easily accessible to get back downstairs as quickly as possible to my 2-year-old. 

As I had just removed my workout leggings a little voice behind me said “Mom, I see your penis.” I stopped dead in my tracks. A number of things went through my mind most of which were not appropriate responses to a two year-old. I whipped around and responded “That is a not a penis.” He laughed and once again said “Yes, I see your penis.” 

At this point, I had to think quick, 100% not prepared to have an anatomy discussion with my 2-year-old. I was extremely pregnant and not in the mood to have the discussion. I said “It is not a penis. It is a vagina. Now go watch your show so mommy can change.” He responded “Ba-gi-na?” 

In that moment him saying “Ba-gi-na” was honestly worse than him thinking I had a penis. I once again told him to just go back downstairs and I would be right behind him. Before he turned around he said “Put your penis away mommy.” I had no response.

Later that week, the anatomy questions kept coming. My husband was changing his shirt and our son asked “What are those?” My husband matter-of-factly responded “Nipples.”
2 year-old: “What do they do?”
Husband: “Not a whole lot.”

Clearly my husband demonstrated he is better at discussing anatomy with our son than I am. Next time I will be more prepared, I hope.