I will never be ready to have the sex talk with my fifth grader. NEVER. I realize it is important, especially as a female, but, there must be a class for that. My opinion is so different from Kim's, who says we should just explain it as she asks. I don't remember my parents explaining it to me. What I remember is hiding in the back of the library and reading the cartoon book, Where Did I Come From? Those were the days.
The questions always seem to come when I least expect them: in the carpool line, at the grocery store, or when watching a show that I thought for sure was appropriate for an eleven-year-old. The other day on the way to school we were sitting at the red light, Madonna came on XM Radio. Of course, I get excited, crank up the radio, and spill just a drip of my coffee on the console. My curls bop to the thick synthesizer into....left for two, right right for two... and drums... I'm totally in the zone. I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through... In my mind I see her cropped jean jacket and black leggings. Then I get pulled out of my daydream from a voice in the backseat.

"Mama, what's a virgin?"

Noooooooooooo, you're only in the fifth grade, I think to myself. I'm not ready for this. Damn it, Madonna. Maybe I can pretend I was so into the music I didn't hear her. This sometimes used to work when she was little.

"Mama? What's a VIRGIN?" Senia Mae asks a second time, letting me know I was in no way off the hook with this imperative question. This past Christmas I let her watch my favorite tis the season chick flick, The Holiday, thinking there was nothing inappropriate in there. The dialogue between Jude Law and Cameron Diaz' characters actually mention the word sex frequently, enough for my daughter to ask what sex was. I got away with saying sex was a bunch of kissing and stuff. Now she was four months more mature. I wasn't getting let off the hook easily.

"Well, a virgin is someone who hasn't had sex before." I said the words with lightning speed hoping she didn't catch the content and we could, hopefully, move onto the next topic. Nope.

"Huh?" It was like a grunt from the backseat. She didn't get it, I knew, but this gave me a second to reorganize my thought process. And what was my most natural go to? Without being aware, I went at it Catholic grandma style.

"You know the most famous example of that is the Virgin Mary," I said, unable to believe that these words were flowing from my mouth, but I just couldn't stop. "God loved Mary enough that he chose her to carry his only son, Jesus. She was a virgin, pure and innocent, and Jesus was the miracle baby that happened." I could almost feel my Catholic Grandma smiling down from heaven, nodding her head and realizing that taking me to that Rosary meeting on my tenth birthday actually had been a good idea. Just look at the results.

Silence filled the backseat. I was pretty sure my child had more questions now, but realized that I was going to give her the "Ring Around the Rosy" answer and she should probably ask Momma Kim. But at least it gave me a little more time and isn't that what we all want... just a little more time?