Why Do I Have to Always Have the Answers?

Our kids wake up early.  Damn early.  It's our fault, really.  Herr wakes up at 5:00 AM during the week and is out the door at 5:15 AM.   I then get up, shower and get ready for work and wake them up at 6:00AM to be out the door by 6:20AM.  It's just how it is.  Unfortunately, our children are so well trained to wake up early, that they have just never learned to sleep in on the weekends.  Our sleep schedules will definitely be changing when we move to Nashville in a few weeks, but for now it is what it is.

Sunday morning I was fast asleep.  I vaguely remember a dream about being somewhere with someone doing something.  I felt a presence of someone next to me.  I was starting to wake up, but I was playing the game of not letting on that I was waking up.  Maybe the creature would go away.  I kept my eyes closed and felt tiny little Genna hands pushing me to go toward the middle of the bed.  I complied with my eyes closed.  I felt her climb into the bed and get situated under the covers. She is such an adorable cuddle bear.  I am sure it is early, but I don't care.  These precious moments aren't going to last forever--I will soak them in as long as I can.   I felt her tiny little hands as they held my face.

"Mommy, are boogers healphy?"

"WHAAAAAA?" my eyes flew open.

"Are boogers healphy?"

NOTE:  The girls have been learning at school the difference between healthy food and junk food.  At any given moment, one of the girls will ask if seltzer water is junk food (no) or if Pirate's Booty is healthy (not really, but it's Ok sometimes).  Genna can't quite seem to pronounce the "th" in healthy.

"Eww Genna, gross!!  Boogers are NOT healthy.  Ever."  I look at my alarm clock.  It is 6:30 in the fucking morning.

"They're junk food?"

"No!  They aren't that either!  They are YUCKY!"

The look on her face indicated that she didn't understand that something could be neither healthy nor junk food.  She also clearly didn't believe me when I said they were yucky. Genna LOVES to go after nose truffles.  She has her fingers constantly in her nose.  No amount of yelling or making fun of her has broken her of this habit.  The majority of the time I don't even see anything on her finger to eat.  She.just.likes.her.finger.in.her.nose.  At this point, I am hoping that she will stop once the she gets older and the kids in her class start to ridicule her.  I then tried to explain to her that boogers were made of dirt and since she didn't eat dirt, she shouldn't eat boogers.  We laughed and went about our day.  And yes, she still picked her nose all day long.

While I laughed and told several friends about Genna's question,  I worried.  Did I really explain boogers properly to her?  Do I even KNOW what a booger is made out of?  To check, I actually Googled, "What are boogers made of?"  I read this.  It was actually quite interesting.  I had no idea that the nose and sinuses produce nearly one liter of mucus a day.  I was relieved to read that, as far as a three-year-old's comprehension goes, I explained boogers properly.

And even though I was relieved, I was annoyed.  I voiced my annoyance to Herr that I am always the one who has to answer the uncomfortable questions like, "Why does Daddy pee standing up?" and "What's that?"  "That" has been a host of things over the years like the dog's penis, my breasts, a maxi-pad ("No it's NOT a diaper."), etc.  I told Herr that if I can't manage to handle answering the booger question, how am I going to survive adolescence and discuss their periods and sex.

Herr said with a smile on his face, "I don't care because that isn't my job.  When that time comes, I am going to go up to my man room, turn on some ESPN and forget that I am in a house full of women.  It's all on you."

Herr will pay.