Sandy's petals

Our 5 year old's questions had to come sooner or later, and I'm a firm believer in "sooner" rather than leaving it to some jaded peer to give him answers, possibly wrong, possibly scandalous answers. And "sooner" seems to be a time of wonder when information can be received in a beautiful marveling way, in the way of a child.

Our 5 year old was the first to notice a few drops of blood on the ground, right where our puppy was dancing around, greeting him with exuberance.
Mom, come quick! Sandy is bleeding!

I rushed outside, and then realised the emergency wasn't the kind of emergency involving a vet, but rather one of rapid-response parenting.
Sandy was on heat. What a surprise!
I guess she is a teenage doggess all of a sudden.
Thankfully at that moment the neighbourhood scallywags from up the road called for my son and he charged off to play marbles with them in our back yard, temporarily distracted.

That afternoon was the day before one of my 3rd year exams. In delight, I grabbed the opportunity to procrastinate do some pro-active parenting rather than pore yawningly over my study notes.
How was I going to explain this great, big, possibly scary concept of menstruation to my 5 year old son?
My foot nudged against the recycling box under the kitchen table and an idea sparked: I would make a doggess out of recycling, complete with lady insides.

Our birds and bees conversations so far have been vague, and my son knows that procreation has something to do with boy magic and girl magic coming together to make a baby inside a mommy. He hasn't yet asked more questions, such as how the boy magic gets inside the mommy...  I vowed to God as a teenager never to be a parent that just hands my child a book explaining how our body's work, never to make the subject taboo or embarrassing, but rather to convey how miraculous it all is. So, with these thoughts in my head, Pandy, the recycling puppy, began to take shape from a halved juice bottle, with an abdomen designed to open up to show her magic parts.

While sticking and stapling and constructing I racked my brains for an analogy that would not gross out my child. Eventually I settled on a flower image, and placed an egg (bead) inside the flower.

Later, when the neighbourhood scallywags had gone home, my son came to see what I was up to.

Son: Is that Sandy, Mom?
Mom: Sort of, except this is Pandy.
Son: Oh, ok, she looks a lot like Sandy.
Mom: I wanted to show you what's going on inside Pandy.

His eyes widened as I pulled the 2 parts of the abdomen apart.
Son: Oh cool, Mom! She's got a flower in her tummy!
Mom: Inside Pandy, there is a very soft, very special nest.
Son: What's it for?
Mom: The nest is where girls and Moms keep their magic - little eggs that wait for some Daddy magic. If some Daddy magic comes along then the Mom's egg and the Daddy magic will make a baby puppy, and that puppy will grow inside this beautiful warm soft nest.
Son: Made of flowers?
Mom: No, it's not really made of flowers, but it is soft and cushiony like flowers. To keep the tiny little baby puppy safe and warm.
Son: That sounds nice
Mom: If no Daddy magic comes along, then the soft little nest has to be changed. Just like your bed-sheets, that I wash every now and again.

  Silence from my son (which is rare)

Mom: So when the nest has been there a while and it needs to be changed, bits of the nest come out of the mommy or girl dog's punani. It doesn't really hurt much, the bits of the nest just come out, and then a new nest grows, all ready in case some Daddy magic comes along.

Son: FROM HER PUNANI?
Mom: Yes. Like this (demonstrate with petals coming out of Pandy recycling dog)
Son: Ok.
Mom: But the nest is not made out of petals. It is made out of a soft cushion of blood, and when a new nest needs to come the old nest comes out as little drops of blood, not petals.

(Son has lightbolt moment) Is that what is happening to Sandy?
Mom: Yes, exactly.
Son: Her nest is coming out, and a new nest is growing inside her?
Mom: Yes, you understand it very well, my Love.
Son: So she is not sore in her tummy?
Mom: It can be a bit like a tummy ache when the little nest loosens up to leave her body, but most of the time she can't feel it.
Son: OK. Can we go and ride bikes now? (end of conversation.)


We've had no more questions since then about Sandy's bleeding, but its been interesting to overhear him relaying some of this information to one of his friends a few years older than him.

Son: Do you know why my puppy has blood petals coming out of her punani?