Sex-Ed in 5th Grade?

Not exactly a post for guys - but maybe....

You've been warned.

I'm sure there are many good reasons for including Sex-Ed in the 5th grade curriculum these days... I was just not at all prepared for it. Neeper came home this week with MANY questions about how the female body works. The school sent the kids home with a pamphlet about how their bodies would be changing in the next couple years and what to expect.

Neeper is SO excited to have her period... she just can't wait to be a 'young woman'. I keep trying to tell her she should enjoy the fact that she doesn't have to deal with that mess yet, and she'll very much want to be rid of it once it arrives. She says innocently enough "But you loose your period when you start menopause, right?" this makes me laugh, and then cry... cause I know it's not true, which I've informed her a couple times.

With the lovely little pamphlet are three different sizes of feminine pads from panty liners to an overnight pad. I went to the grocery store Thursday, the day the packet came home, and when I returned, it appeared Neeper was chasing Dub around the house with one of these pads still in it's pretty pink package. I don't think I was gone more than 45 minutes, but I cannot properly describe the look of relief on his face when I came thru the door. Neeper started chatting with me then, and tried to include Dub in the conversation but he tossed up his hands and said he was "Done talking about female stuff!"

It's funny, Dub will talk about almost anything with Neeper, sometimes in too much detail for her age (It's my opinion that there are some things kids don't need to know until they are older) yet he didn't want to talk with her about the nature of the female body. *giggles* I'll give him crap about that later, especially as she grows up.

Friday, I was taking a little nap in the afternoon when Neeper brought the pamphlet to me with 12 foot tape measure from the garage in hand and announced, "I don't get it!" and pointed to the instructions for measuring to find your bra size.

It seems there is a formula that goes something like :
1) Measure around your chest, just below the breasts.
2) Add 5 inches if it's an odd number; add 4 inches if it's an even number. This is your bra measurement. (Not sure why, I'm just going with what it says...)
3) To find out what cup size is needed, measure around the fullest part of your breasts.

It goes on to say the difference in the first number and second number will tell you what your cup size is:
AA - if numbers are the same
A - if 1 inch difference
B - if 2 inch difference
C - D more than any 5th grader should have unless they've been held back for several years.

Number 3 is what was confusing Neeper. See, those of us wearing more than an A cup these days know that this measurement is done around the chest, across the fullest part of the breast.. how far do the girls stick out, in other words. Neeper was thinking that she needed to measure around the beast area, only there's not much there so she's having a hard time coming up with a number. Not sure these yo-yo's who wrote the booklet kid tested it before taking it to press.

But reading it again, it doesn't tell you that you need the difference between the first measurement (before adding extra inches) so could be additional confusion when if you add 5 inches to 27, but your measurement around the breasts is 28, then how does that work exactly - the poor kid would end up in a DD cup .. talk about disproportionate! Anyway, measuring Neeper's way - she was coming with a much bigger number difference than she should.

It was very hard to hold in the giggles, but we managed to have a serious conversation and determined that at the moment she'd be an AA cup. Now we need to go bra shopping. UGH!

Whew... one down... many more to go...