Toxoplasmosis

This AM, I was telling John how I heard a story on NPR about how toxoplasma can actually change the way mice think to make them less fearful and therefore more likely to get caught by a cat...leading to toxoplasma infesting the cat where it prefers to complete it's reproductive cycle...If humans get it, they are more likely to be schizophrenic or bipolar.

Violet was over at the kid table and then says...
"and then does it make the cat not scared of dogs?"

Brilliant line of logic yet innocently incorrect.

This tops them all

Preface: John and I got busted by Violet. (Embarrassing to admit, but bound to happen when you have 3 small children.) Luckily...she already knew more than your average teenager about sex.

So the next day, she asked....
"What is making out again?" This led to the whole sex topic again with assurances that it was fine to talk about sex and that no, daddy wouldn't be mad about it at all. So, we had a whole sex conversation in the car. I said, "do you have anymore questions?" She said, "How are sperm made again?" (We are sitting in the backseat of a mini van.) I yell up to John... "How many sperm do you make a day?" John says "4 million, or there abouts."
Violet says, "65 million would be more than that." And we then talk about how all the sperm race to the egg. She then says, if two sperm make it, there will be twins. I said, "Only if there are two eggs too. Once one sperm reaches an egg, it locks all the other sperm out."

She has seen pictures of vasectomies in my physiology books. She knows that the sperm can't get from the testes to the egg in the falopian tubes if the vas is cut. She knows that daddy did that after she was born.

She loves looking at the graphic pictures of STD's. "Mom, what's wrong with this vagina?" I reply, "Ooooooo, that is a really bad case of syphilis."
She asks, "How did they get it?"
Me: "Probably had too much sex with too many people and she got a disease."

Well Tonight, in the back of the van (when we drove past the same place that we were last time (Cooper Drive)), she says:

"Can we talk about sex?"
Me: "Sure"
Vi: "How old do you have to be to start doing it?" (I think it is so funny that she said "doin' it" on her own)
Me: "Well, some people have sex really young, but I think it's best to wait until you find someone you really love."
Vi: "I"m going to wait until I'm in college. Can you give me that medicine that will make me not get pregnant?"
Me: "Yes, I can."

(Pause)
Vi: "Where will we do it?"
Me: "Maybe in your dorm room."
Vi: "Do I get my own room?"
Me: "Yes"
Vi: "Do I get my own key to it?"

That was the end of that conversation.

Later, after the bath....she asked when she would get boobs. I said around 14. She said "how big will they be?"
Me: "About as big as mine."
Violet: "THAT BIG!!"
(Which cracks me up because I'm a whopping 34 A)
She then proceeded to gaze at herself in the mirror for quite some time.

John is not so looking forward to her pubescent stage. By then, I should have prescriptive rights.

Death, Evolution, DNA and plate tectonics

Let me set the stage: One tired mom who has been studying almost all day. One kid very very awake.


I was rocking Violet to sleep last night and she said, "Why do people have to die?"
Mom: "Because our cells are programmed to die at a certain point. It's in our DNA."
Vi: "We should just go in an switch that so that people can live 100 years."
Mom: Some people do live for 100 years."
Vi: "Would we all die if like a big rock hit the Earth?"
Mom: "Like a meteor? Yeah, if a really big meteor it the Earth, we would all die. Like how the dinosaurs all died."
Vi: "But not a little meteor?"
Mom: "No, we wouldn't die if just a little meteor hit."
Vi: "When there were dinosaurs, there weren't any humans." (Long pause and thinking) "How did that happen? How did humans get here?"
Mom: "That is an excellent question. We came from other animals like primates. We used to be like the apes...gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees. Then, over millions and millions and millions of years, we changed into humans."
Vi: "Oh, like metamorphosis!!?"
Mom: "YES! it's like metamorphosis because we change, but it is called evolution. It means when one animal changes over a long long time. Do you remember about DNA? We share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees!!! That means we are almost exactly the same!!! Like they have 4 fingers and a thumb and we have 4 fingers and a thumb."
Vi: "No, we have 5 fingers."
Mom: "that's true."
Vi: "And they can climb trees and we can climb trees."
Mom: "But we lost all the hair on our bodies."
Vi: "How did our skin get white?"
Mom: "Excellent question. People think that all the pieces of the Earth used to be together and that we all started out in Africa. And then, there were Earthquakes and the Earth broke up into pieces and people went to different places on the Earth."
Vi: "Like the Earthquake in Haiti."
Mom: "Yes, that's how the Earth keeps changing and breaking up. We all used to have brown skin like Erickson and Love and we all came from Africa. Then, we lost our hair and some people's skin changed to all different colors."
Vi: "Mom, mom....
Mom: "It's time to go to sleep. I have to go study."
Vi: "No, I want to stay here and learn more." (She seriously said that!)
Mom: "OK, one more question."
Vi: "How do giraffes get long necks?"
Mom: "Well, over millions and millions of years, their necks got longer so they could reach the leaves on the trees."
Vi: Their necks started off short?
Mom: "I think they did."
Vi: Are they as tall as our house?
Mom: No. They are about as tall as 2 mommies.
Vi: 2 Mommies stacked up? on the deck?
Mom: "Not stacked up on the deck, just on the ground. If a giraffe was standing on the ground, we could stand on the deck and feed it. Now it's time for bed!"

I'll have to introduce Natural Selection later!! I wonder what this kid will turn out to be?