At the start of the school year, Matt came home to inform us that you aren’t allowed to say the word “sexy” in Kindergarten. For some reason, my kids got a chuckle out of this even though they have no idea what the word means.  It stuck. “Sexy” was added to their self-created list of bad words to say in the Ingram house right next to “stupid” and “hate”. (But of course, my youngest has no problem with exclaiming, “Jesus!”  or “Oh, ship!” when things go wrong.)

Of course, when you are five years-old and add something to the taboo list, it naturally follows that you will try to get away with saying that word as often as you can. Every so often I must endure, “Mummy! Sammy called me sexy!” as if this is the worst thing in the word that you could say to someone.

Oh ship, it’s hard to keep a straight face.

I’ve never felt the need to explain what it means to call someone sexy and I think it’s too soon to talk about the birds and the bees so when it came up time to have the dog neutered, I shouldn’t have been surprised when there were questions that I couldn’t easily answer.

Wednesday was Webster’s bad day. The husband dropped him off at the vet’s office on his way to work in the morning and picked him up later that evening. Of course, as fate would have it, Wednesday the kids had a clerical day off school so Webster’s absence was noticed.

In hindsight, I probably should have told them that Webster went somewhere else – I don’t know where – maybe he had a play date with his doggie friends? Maybe he had an important Super Dogs Meeting to attend? But without thinking much about it, I told them Daddy dropped Webster off at the vet where he would spend the day.

“Why does Webster have to go to the vet?”

“Because he’s scheduled for his surgery today.”

“Is Webster sick?”

“No, he’s not sick.”

“Is the vet making him healthy?” they ask looking at me completely perplexed. (Why oh why didn’t I just say yes and leave it at that?)

“No, Webster is being neutered.”

“What is neutered?”

Hmmm… how do you explain the hows and whys of neutering a dog to three kids that haven’t even been introduced to the birds and the bees? I was stumped and I really didn’t want to tell them what the vet was altering if I wasn’t prepared to give them a reasonable explanation why. Although, it’s been kind of obvious since Webster got home that he’s having issues “down there”.

“The vet is going to change Webster so he won’t want to find a girlfriend anymore.” (Weak, I know and I regret saying this.)

“Webster wants a girlfriend?” Matt clearly thought this idea was a bit crazy. Girls, yuck!

“He did, but he won’t anymore.”

“Why does Webster want a girlfriend?”

“Ummm… I’m not sure.”

Thankfully, the allure of playing outside, even if it was without their favorite furry friend, was greater than sitting around trying to figure out why the dog wanted a girlfriend and why Mummy and Daddy sent him to the vet for surgery to fix that.

I’ve got a funny feeling Matt won’t be telling me he has a girlfriend anytime soon.

In the meantime, Sam went back to school on Thursday and explained to his friends and teachers that his dog spent Wednesday at the vet because he had a girlfriend and he isn’t allowed to have a girlfriend. I suspect it’s time to sit down and have a little talk and hopefully undo the damage I’ve done.

Any suggestions??