About this time last year: I "found" Chicky's book It's Perfectly Normal on her bookcase, and tried to talk with her about it. She responded by staring at her bookcase. "Look at all these books!" she said quickly. "I have so many books! I bet I haven't even read them all. That is a LOT of books." She didn't make eye contact.
A week or so later: I pointed to a diagram in one of her books, and laughed. She laughed too. We looked through some pictures together, and found them funny, but didn't talk about either sex or puberty very much.
A couple of weeks after that: I found the copy of the book in the bathroom, when she called me in to keep her company while she took a bubble bath. She pretended that she had no idea how that book got there. I pretended that made sense. We read some of the book, and talked about it briefly.
A couple of months later (during which time we'd continued discussing puberty and sex occasionally): We introduce the conversation topic Itchy Issues. Awkward conversations are scheduled for once or twice a week. We both enjoy these, even though they are theoretically "itchy" (ie uncomfortable). I bought her a little pouch, and put some pads in it Just In Case. She keeps this in her backpack.
As time wore on, the puberty vocabulary became our vocabulary. Sex is getting to be a more comfortable topic, but still not there yet. That's ok. When she was telling me about her Sex Ed class at school, she mentioned that the teacher had to pause the video when one of the boys in the film was talking about his penis. Chicky used the word "penis" in a sentence, not hesitating over it or whispering. Good for her. No need to get all awkward talking about a body part, but so many people do. She told me many details about the sex ed classes, and I loved hearing about it. It's so interesting! And it's very fun to get her perspective.
Last week: Chicky asked me if we could go bra shopping. We did, on Monday. Story will follow, of course.
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