The Discussion

Here's how it went, with a big preface about how this was very mature conversation, and her friends might not know it and it wasn't meant to be gossip fodder, and she shouldn't go around telling people what she knows, but if her friends ask, she should tell them to ask their moms:

Me: PMS stands for pre-menstrual syndrome.

H: What's a syndrome?

Me: A syndrome is like a, well, a sickness. No, not really a sickness, more like a condition.

H: Like Down's syndrome?

Me: How do you know about Down's syndrome?

H: It was in the Main Street book I read. Let me show you.

[H jumps out of bed and to her bookshelf to grab the book. I'm breathing a sigh of relief thinking our PMS discussion is over.]

H: See, here Robby has Down's syndrome. He was very excited to get cupcakes, but he's 16. Most 16-year-olds wouldn't be excited about cupcakes, right? So people with Down's syndrome act a little young?

Me: Yes.

[Silence]

H: So what's the rest of it mean?

Me: Have you heard about periods or menstruation?

H: Only from Jessica [a babysitter], when she told me she got her period and asked me if I knew where you kept some stuff.

Me: Oh right [I forgot about that and avoided the discussion then]. Anyway, when girls are ready to have babies, and their bodies may be physically ready as early as 11, but that doesn't mean you'd have a baby then....

H: Yes, like that girl on American Idol who was like 18 and already had babies, but then you couldn't go to college or do other things.

Me: Right (thinking how did we get on the topic of teenage pregnancy?). Anyway, the uterus prepares each month with a lining that has nutrients for the baby, but if there's no baby, the lining is shed, and blood comes out your vagina.

H (contorting her face in horror while simultaneously stifling giggles): OK.

Me: So before you get your period, some women get puffy and cranky, and that's called pre-menstrual syndrome, and that's PMS.

H: OK. So what does it mean in the song? You PMS like a b****.

Me: PMS can make you cranky.

H: OK.

THE END