This is not what I was going to say

Naturally, because I wrote about it, Mabel decided it was time to let me know in no uncertain terms that the only change I have effected is one of creating more laundry for myself. Still. We're in it for the long haul, and it has begun. That's all I have to say about that.

Monkey just jumped off a too-high bay windowsill one too many times and bit his tongue pretty badly. I know he really wanted an ice-pop, but there are less painful ways to get one. He's lying beside me on the sofa, still sniffing pathetically at intervals, but the bleeding has stopped and he'll be fine. I offered to put on a DVD, as some sort of special treat, but he said, "No. I love Qubo." What a testimonial for public TV.

Yesterday he told me he thought I should make another baby sister, a smaller one. And that it said in his book about the human body that I could make one every month. When I reminded him that Daddy would have to be involved as well, he said "Oh yes, you have to do that special hug. Well, you can do it in there, in the family room."

Which led to a bit more of a conversation about s-e-x (he was unimpressed and mostly uninterested), and how grown-ups like to do it even if they're not making a baby, and how sometimes they do things to make sure that they don't make a baby, and that if we wanted to make one we'd stop doing those things. But that we probably aren't going to because we're probably good with just two.

And yet, part of me wanted to say, "Oh well, since you asked so nicely and you clearly mean it, then I suppose you can have a new baby sibling. Just wait a minute till I've finished my lunch." Because that's a good reason.

I probably shouldn't tell you this next part, but it's too good to keep to myself. It was probably inevitable, given all the, um, region-specific acrobatics Monkey was doing, that something interesting would happen. He discovered that he could make his penis go all straight and standing-uppy. I happened to find him doing this when trying to hurry him up in the bathroom one afternoon, and I thought I should let him know that it's perfectly normal and something that happens to all boys, in case he was worried in any way. Far from it: I think he was a little disappointed to find out it wasn't just him. He probably thought it was a fabulous new superpower.

Now, from what he said to me yesterday, he apparently has a whole scenario in which his penis is a monster chasing things... I was trying not to listen, really, but as his father said when I regaled him with this latest, he'd want to refine his notions a bit before he starts trying to interest the girls.

I begin to see where all this male idolatry of the penis stems (ahem) from - as far as a five-year-old is concerned at least, it's a magical animal all of his own. But then, some men, as we've seen all too clearly in recent days, never really progress from the five-year-old stage, do they?