Our China Girl

Mocha Cub, my little niece, is now five months old! It seems like yesterday that we were anticipating her arrival. But already she is a bouncing, wiggling, giggling girl who is eating food and teething. I am her caretaker, and she spends several afternoons a week at my house while her parents are working.

There are certain things that you don't come across in an all boy household. All four of them have the same equipment, shall we say, and they don't really take much notice to closed bathroom doors or jumping in and out of the shower right after one another.

So it was an oddity to Nathan when Mocha Cub started coming over on a regular basis. As with all infants, diaper changes are a necessity. And the first time he was sitting in the room when I was changing her diaper he glanced over and then confused he wandered over for a closer examination.

"Mommy, she's just a butt!"

As we use the word penis in our household, I found it counterproductive to use a nickname for the girl version of anatomy.

"No, Nate. She is a girl, and a girl has a vagina."

"Not just a butt...she has a china?"

After several attempts at correct pronunciation I gave up. He has come to calling her a "china girl". This made for an interesting conversation at the store when a random elderly man came up and remarked about how pretty she was.

Nathan responded matter-of-factly. "She's a china girl."

To which the man responded, "Why yes, she does look like a china doll!"

"No, a CHINA GIRL!" Nate insisted.

I, of course, jumped in very quickly and responded that yes she does look like a little doll and maneuvered the stroller out of ear shot as fast as possible. The poor man need not know exactly what it is that Nate the Great was referring to!