Stay calm

I don't even know where to start. It's Diva. She's growing up too fast. I don't mean in that "what a sweet girl, it seems like just yesterday she was but a wee thing" way. If only. 

She is in the 5th grade at the elementary school a few blocks down the street. Her 11th birthday is less than a month away. She likes to ride bikes, watch cartoons, and is crazy about Hannah Montana. 

Evidently she is also crazy about a boy in her class at school. 

Last Thursday morning at about 10:30 I got a call from her teacher. She said that she'd intercepted a note that Diva wrote to "another student in the class" that was of a sensitive nature. The teacher wouldn't come right out and say what exactly my dear child said. But she said she'd send the note home to me in a large sealed manila envelope. OK. I debated whether to go over to the school and try to get it myself before Diva had a chance to "lose" it. I decided to wait.

When Diva arrived home at 3:00 that afternoon she was all sweet and smiley. She is usually a cheerful child, unless she's pouting about something specific. Without waiting for me to ask for it, she produced the large envelope from her book bag. Sproing made some excuse about going to see his friend and bounced out of the house. Good. I didn't want him involved in whatever this turned out to be. 

I opened the package to find a nice stationery envelope with the name of the object of her affection (misspelled, I think. She pronounces his name with an "n" in it, but there was no such letter in the address). To give further clue to what I didn't want to think, there was a big luscious lipstick kiss across the flap of the envelope. Where did this child learn about sealing a letter with a kiss?? Inside the envelope were two pieces of the matching note paper (mine, which she took without permission, but that's so beyond the point). On the first page was scribbled in green marker "XXXXXXX means kiss  100x's  100 kiss's" It looks much more random on the note paper than I can make it look typed out like this. But that's the message, loud and clear.

So I brought forward the second page. It says, in green magic marker, "Do you want to have sex? Yes or No   roomers"

Oh, shit. Deep breath, Mom. Don't yell. Remain calm whatever you do!

I was sitting in the chair I'm in right now, her standing beside me. I took a few breaths. And said "Um, Diva?  Um, wha'... um... who... um, ah, ..." No good. Try again. "Diva, um, how... wha'..." This isn't going well. By this time I'm holding my forehead with my left hand, the notes in my right. "Ah, Diva, um, did you, ah, ...um... We need to talk about this." Good move Mom. You can't even speak. I don't remember if I made any coherent sentences after that until I told her to go to her room. I was calm as I said it. In retrospect I realize I should have said "We need to talk about this, but I need some time to gather my thoughts." Well, my thoughts weren't gathered enough to say that, but whatever.

I didn't have the heart to call Superman. I didn't want to tell him over the phone, you know? Eventually he came home. Diva was in her room most of the rest of the afternoon, and ended up cleaning her room very well. Her Dad came home, she was out of her room, we had supper, life happened. Of course I told Superman about it, had showed him the notes by then. I knew we needed to discuss this before she went to bed.

As the kids were beginning to get ready for bed around 8:00 I called Diva into my room. Superman and I were sitting on the bed. I was calm. I asked her about the notes. We talked. I was calm. She answered my questions. After some bit of discussion something she said prompted me to ask her what she meant by the question. Was she curious about his intent, or was she inviting him to have sex with her? Her eyes brightened up and she said, "Yes, I wanted to know. See, that's what I wrote there," pointing to the word "roomers." Then she read the note to me, filling in a whole sentence that contained the word "rumors" and indicating she had heard that he wanted to have sex with her. She was just curious about it. 

The child lies with astonishing frequency. I could tell, however, that she was being totally honest about her intent. I suspect she was a bit befuddled about all this fuss. The teacher had discussed it, I had been unable to clearly speak when I read the note, she'd spent the afternoon in her room, and now we were having one of those infamous "discussions" that parents have with their children. But I was calm. Superman sat on the bed and didn't say a word that I can recall. He didn't know what to say, either. 

These are a few of the things we talked about. I asked does she know what sex is? Yes. What? Rather hesitant and embarrassed she said "When a boy sticks his dick in my, um, you know, privates." OK, she's got that one pretty much figured out. "Have you ever had sex before?" I ask, masking my fear. "NO! Ewww." Oh, thank Gawd. 

I talked about how old one should be to have sex, what state of a relationship one should have before becoming intimate. I always try to ask her questions (I am the question queen, after all) to get her to participate in these discussions. If I just drone on, she tunes me out. It is so hard to make this stuff applicable to a child her age. I tried to tell her about how a sexual relationship involves complex emotions that children aren't able to handle. The thing is, at her stage of emotional development she doesn't have the maturity to understand that it takes maturity to successfully enter into a consenting sexual relationship. Half the stuff I said to her probably went right over her head. I realized as I was speaking the words that she wouldn't understand them. I repeated myself, trying to simplify with each repetition. The dear child watched me with rapt attention, a very unusual state for her. 

At one point during the conversation when I was talking about writing notes to boys (Don't!) she said "Do you want to see the other notes I wrote to him?" I remain calm. "Yes, I would." She runs out of the room, Superman and I look at each other, and I whisper "There are more????"

The one note in question had the number 3 written in the upper right corner of the envelope. Yep, the third of six notes. None of the rest had been opened. I calmly told her I'll hang on to these notes, since it isn't proper for her to be writing notes to the boys right now. Y'all, I haven't had the guts to open the other envelopes! And number 6 is addressed to this boy's mom and dad! I still have them all right here. 

One thing I don't want to do is fill her head with fear and superstitions about sex. Respect, yes. Outlandish unhealthy ideas, no. I told her that now is about the right time for her to start to think about boys (or girls, as the case may be. You know I'm cool either way. But since the note was written to a boy, I didn't bring that up.) and about being in love. But it's the time to just think about it, not do anything! This is a time for young boys and girls to practice these emotions, and it will take a lot of time to figure it all out. Take your time, child, don't be in such a rush!! No, I didn't say that out loud. Do you think she heard me thinking it?

So that's where we stand now. A week later and all seems calm. This is not the end. The next 7-8 years are gonna be real doozies.