Boy Talk

“Mommy, I found a mask!” Wade walked into the room holding an athletic cup over his face.

“Umm, that’s not a mask. Get that off your face. Where did you find this?”

“Daddy’s drawer.”

Then David walked in the room and grabbed it. “Yeah, Wade. It goes down here.” David demonstrated by holding the cup up to the appropriate location on himself.

Wade grabbed the cup back, and attempted to stuff it in his pants. I took it back, and Wade asked what all three-year-olds ask, “Why? Why do you need it?”

My husband wasn’t home, so it was all up to me. If only they were girls asking why they needed to wear bras. I had the answers for that. I guess this was the boy-mom version of that conversation.

“”It’s called an athletic cup. You wear it when you play sports to, uh, protect your penis and, uh, you know, the stuff around it in case you get hit by a baseball or something down there.” I was not about to get into testicles and what testicles are for. Nor was I going to teach my three-year-old any locker room slang for his nether regions.

Again Wade asked, “Why?”

I tried to delicately explain, “Um, because, uh, it’s, um, very, um sensitive down there, and, uh, it, you know, can be very painful –”

Then David chimed in, “Because Wade, if you get hit in THE BALLS it hurts really bad!”

“David! Don’t teach him that. Where did you learn that word?”

“Daddy.”