I have a little minion who is 5 years old and excessively funny. Not because she tries to be but because she blurts out whatever is on her mind. A little gift from her mother, I suppose.

I have a notebook where I chronicle all her off-the-wall comments and questions so I can document them for future generations. My other two older daughters get a little jealous because their section in the notebook is considerably shorter.

What can I say, Hope is hoot.

I try to be as up front and honest with my kids as possible, especially about topics like puberty and sex. I don’t want them embarrassed or picking up random false tid-bits from the dummies they hang out with in random kid-centric meetings. Like the time I thought girls shaved their vaginas with miniature lawn mowers because a kid on the bus told me so.

As a result of this, we’re very chatty about these types on conversations on a daily basis. My girls know all about periods and menstrual cups and the fertility cycles of women.

Hope has heard all these things, but still gets a little befuddled when it comes up. She also asks a lot of questions. Every. Day. All. Day.

Here’s a recent semi-awkward conversation we had.

 

Hope: (brushing her frothy, golden mane while I used the toilet, because I haven’t used the toilet alone in 10+ years) Mommy, you’re having that thing where you bleed out your pee pee?

Me: Um, yes. I am. It’s called a period.

Hope: So how long does that happen for?

Me: Well, it’s once a month for about a week.

Hope: So the blood just comes out and comes out and doesn’t stop?

Me: Unfortunately, yes. That’s how it works.

Hope: I know it’s because there was no baby in there so all that blood has to come out.

Me: Yes, ma’am.

Hope: (pauses, thinks really hard) But why don’t you die?

Me: (laughing out loud inside my brain) That is an interesting question, isn’t it?

Hope: (Shakes her head, rolls her eyes and leaves the bathroom.)

 

As the old saying goes, don’t trust anything that can bleed for seven days and not die.