Penis Talk Revisited

You may recall that my post His Penis Is In The Wrong Place in which I explained my daughter’s concern about the Noggin moose and his non-existent penis. It is a short post so if you haven’t read it go take a look. We’ll wait for you.

C’mon, hurry up. The rest of the group is waiting. Geez, Shmata Queen do you always have to read everything twice. Wait, I’ll answer that. Yes!

Anyway, this past Chanukah my lovely girl received both Barbie and Ken dolls, not to mention Barbie’s hot pink car. That leads me to my second off tangent comment. Every time I see that thing it reminds me of Angeleyne. If you don’t know who she is you never set foot in LA in the 80’s.

Now back to our story. This past weekend my lovely girl comes to me and we have the following conversation:

Daughter: “Father, I have need of your assistance.”
Jack: “Daughter, how might I help thee? Dost thou need some new shiny raiments to adorn thy body. It is not as if thy mother, grandmother and aunts have failed to keep thee supplied with more attire than can fit in Rapunzel’s castle.”

Ok, that is far too goofy. Essentially she looked at me and asked what happened to Ken’s penis. In many cases I would have turned the tables and asked her what she thought happened. In fact I really wanted to ask her what she thought. It probably would have made great blog fodder.

Instead I explained that Ken didn’t have a penis. That wasn’t good enough for her. She wanted to know why not. Did someone steal his penis.

Because I have a juvenile sense of humor the thought of a stolen penis cracked me up. I imagined something like this being broadcast over the police band radio: “1-Adam 12, 1-Adam 12. Be on the lookout for a stolen penis. Said genitals were taken….”you get the point.

In response to her question I said that Ken wasn’t made with a penis. This still wasn’t good enough. She wanted to know why G-d didn’t give Ken a penis. Was he bad. Was he mean. Did he get in trouble. Are some boys born without a penis and did I know that her classmate Mark was bad, but he has a penis.

As soon as I heard that Mark had a penis I grabbed her seven year-old brother and used a napkin to scratch out a hit on the kid. He may be 3.5, but you know how boys are. Later on we’re going to boost a big wheel or a Razr scooter, whichever one we can find first. And then I’ll send the big boy in.

In spite of the rapid fire approach of these questions I persevered and strove to explain that sometimes toys are not made with genitals. Of course all this did was lead to a new round of questions about why toys don’t have genitals and did I know that Joseph has a penis too.

By now chunks of hair are sliding down the slide of my head and in moments I am going to look as if I am undergoing medical treatment or some odd form of torture. “Dear girl” I say, “why do you know that these boys have a penis?”

With a big smirk and a toss of her hair she tells me that every boy has a penis. And now I see that I am the subject of the mischievous sense of humor of a 3.5 year-old girl who has already figured out how to manipulate her father.

So I smirk back at her and say that one day she’ll find out what I learned from having 1,980,873 sisters. And just when I think that I have won she wraps her arms around my neck, looks at me with those deep brown eyes and says “I love you daddy.”

Oy, I am in trouble.

• Saved: Children