Anatomically Correct

One thing about having a mom for a nurse: My kids get way more information than they bargained for at times. Discussions on anatomy, digestive processes, and yes, even reproduction are met with very little hesitation around these parts.

My girls have always loved to play with horses. They love those hard rubber horses that you get at your local farm store like Atwoods or Tractor Supply. We had every horse they sold in those places, then we moved on to their mountain lions, deer, bears, whatever, because the loved these little toys so much. The brand is Schleich, and their toys are really neat. I myself have fantasized about their fantasy kingdom toys.

When we still lived in Texas my kids would go stay with their grandparents for 7 days straight. They would spend a few days with my in-laws and a few days with my parents, then 2 of those seven days was spent driving.

At one time, when my girls were three and four, they were out "helping" my dad saddle the horses. At this time my dad had not only Appy, he had a retired carousel horse named Fancy. Fancy was quite the pony. She would only go if led. Apparently, after years on that carousel, toting little ones on her back, reining was a completely foreign concept. She would not go anywhere without a lead rope. Unless of course, somebody failed to hold on to the lead rope, in which case she would take off as fast as her little legs would carry her...Typical pony. You can read about my experiences growing up with a pony at my sister Dawn's blog. Click here, here, and here.

But, back to my kids the big helpers. I think my nephews were out their too. Since I was 400 miles away at the time that this story occurred, some of the details may be slightly incorrect. But only slightly, mind you...

The kids were having one of those great kid discussions. Apparently they were discussing the relationship between the two horses. The discussion was whether Appy was Fancy's mother. Popcorn, who was three at the time was adamant that he was not her mother. He was her father, because she KNEW he was a boy. The disagreement went on for a while.

Until Popcorn walked up to Appy, ducked down, took a good gander at his belly, stood up and announced "He is TOO the daddy...He has boy parts!"

Well.

My dad was pretty stunned.

And he didn't say a word.

Of course, he told my mom about the exchange later on, and expressed his surprise that such a small city kid knew the anatomy of a horse. My mom then related the story to me. (You can see how some of my details may be skewed here. But very few. I'm fabulous at discerning/adding facts to stories as they are shared with me) I laughed and explained about their horses.

You see, the Schleich horses are anatomically correct. My girls were having the babies "nurse" (another sign your mom is a nurse. Bookworm used to nurse her baby dolls while I was literally nursing her sister) the stud horses. Also, they thought that they had poop on them near their tail. You know I couldn't leave those misconceptions alone. I had explained the anatomy to them, although rather vaguely in terms of "girl parts and boy parts."

Of course, by now they actually know the correct word for those parts.

Wonder what my dad would do if she looked at one of his bulls and said "testicles?"