Already?

So, the other day while driving TheBoy home from soccer practice, he asked THE question. He's 9 (and a half, he'll quickly tell you; it's one of those inexplicable phenomenon whereby young folks actually want to be older...); I hadn't planned on having THAT talk for another few years. Given that my own "talk" with Dad G. was a little more, err, pragmatic than anything else (I believe his exact words were "You knock her up, you own her"), I'm kind of at a loss as to how I should proceed.

I punted at the time, using a semantic loophole - he asked "How does a baby grow inside a woman's belly" rather than "where do babies come from" - getting into a precise biochemical analysis of the cell division, mitochondrial exchange, and subsequent protein folding involved in the growth of an embryo. Decades-old Developmental Biology textbooks flittered in front of my mind's eye as I searched for a technically accurate but meaningless answer to his question. It's not that I didn't want to answer, or thought he's not old enough - it's that I wanted to make sure Mrs. G. and I were on the same page as far as what kind of information to give him (hint: NOT any of the links Stingray or Weerdbeard post).

*sigh*

I hadn't planned on having this discussion for a few years. I imagined that I'd take him aside, all Father Knows Best-like once his voice started changing and explain to him how he was turning into a man and all that. Usually I'm smoking a pipe in this sequence, but that's just me. I figured that 13, maybe 14 was a good age to start gently introducing concepts related to sexuality, giving just the right mixture of knowledge and warning to sate his curiosity but leave him cautious.

I might as well try to design a perpetual motion device. While blindfolded, hopping on one leg, and humming "Ride of the Valkyries".

I suppose I should have known better when he started talking about girls at school who were "hotties" and ones that were "just friends." A more observant person would have seen the transition from video game-themed T-shirts to faddish threads and realized that, despite however stunted I may have been at his age, he's getting very close to being ready for THE talk. In two years he'll be finishing elementary school and going off to Junior High Middle School, years I remember only when the shock treatments have been spaced too far apart. The talk should take place before then, I'm thinking, not so much to impart information (he does have access to the internet, after all) but to let him know, as dorky as Dad is, he's willing to answer questions and provide straight talk.

Or maybe I need to look into a good military school. That's always an option.

That is all.