education expands the horizons. definitely. you’re never too young to start questioning if a tree falls in a forest, would anybody hear, how can you prove that each snowflake is different…has anyone seen each one…or in jasper’s case, his gender.

jasper knows he is a boy. he knows this because he wears bobs, and in our family, boys wear bobs, and girls wear knickers. it’s the law. jasper is also aware that he has permission to wee standing up. his bits allow for this, much to his sisters’ firm, high pitched disapproval. boys can wee standing up, girls cannot. another gem he has tucked into his tiny grey matter.

jasper was the first of this batch of kids to become toilet trained. so he has had a bit of time to become familiar with his bits, and from the amount of time he spends with one or more hands attached to them, i figured he had his bits and his boyhood all figured out.

so i was a bit surprised the other day when as i was picking jasper up from school his teacher said to me while choking back a laugh, "jasper had a good day today. he made us all laugh."

"not surprising," i said, wondering if he had done his latest dora dance for them, which does get smiles.

"we were choosing the special helper of the day, and we established that the special helper was a girl, which meant all the boys had to sit down…."

"yes?" i politely inquired, wondering how my child fit into this scenario.

"and jasper stayed standing and then when i said, ‘jasper are you a boy or a girl?’ he responded, "i am a girl with a willy."

i said nothing intelligable, but burst into laughter. my eyebrows jumped somewhere up to my hairline.

on the ride home, jasper repeated his new found knowledge, with confidence. "girl with a willy, girl with a willy." sebastian, ever the policeman, informed jasper not only that he was wrong, but where he was wrong. he gave detailed descriptions and was mostly correct.

since then, i have told him that he is a boy and he will say, "no i am a girl". and then i will say, remembering my first year university philosophy and logic course…"jasper do you have a willy?" and he’ll say, "yeth!" and i will say, "do boys have willies!" and he’ll say "yeth!" and then, hoping that i have gently led him to some conclusion, i will say, "so…" and by then he will be picking a scab or pulling out his hair (seriously, he does this, does this seem odd to you ???) and the discussion will be over.

free willy!