What is this thing?

Adirah loves to go through my bathroom drawers. She opens the bottom drawer and says "not in there!" and then she opens another and exclaims "Nope!" Then she finds the drawer with feminine hygiene supplies! She loves pantiliners most of all. They are enclosed in pink wrappers and Adirah delights in unwrapping the pantiliners and carrying them around the house. I find them in the kitchen, in closets and even inside shoes in the mudroom. I dread the day I actually need a pantiliner and can not find one.

Lately she has found other things to destroy and dismantle, like travel alarm clocks...Batteries! Under the bed! And DVD cases (who needs those paper covers to stay inside the plastic cases?)

Today Adirah moved beyond pantiliners and found some tampons in a purple box. I was doing laundry when I heard Adirah call, "Moooommmy.......where are you?" When she found me, she held up her "prize." A tampon wrapped in a purple wrapper! "Want to put in my pocket!" she demanded and so we found some space in her little pocket. She marched around proudly with the tampon sticking up out of her pocket. I do covet my privacy, so I am pretty sure Adirah has no idea what tampons are.

I was focused on getting Adirah breakfast so I could take her to my exercise class (they have childcare!) I thought about Adirah showing up to the little childcare area with a tampon in her pocket, and I figured I was okay with that. But then as I cooked oatmeal, Adirah unwrapped the tampon and began playing with it as a toy. It was a good distraction for her and I was still doing everything I needed to do to make it to my 10 am excercise class. I love this class, and it gives me one hour in the day where I don't have to think about children. Instead I think about the pain or burning in various parts of my body while we do arm, leg and core exercises.
http://www.barre3.com/

So I let Adirah play with the tampon while I cooked oatmeal, gathered snacks, and filled the diaper bag. After a while Adirah threw the tampon on the floor and said, "Want it under the table!"

"Okay," I thought..... although my first wish would be that the area under the table was clean and free from toys, food scraps and other miscellaneous items.

Later, when Asher got home from school I began my daily ritual of preparing snacks for him. While he ate salami, rice cheese and slices of apple, I decided to clean the dishes overflowing from the sink.

"Wow, I heard Asher say, "What is this? Is this some cool kind of pen or something? "

He had found the tampon under the table and retrieved it. Now he was pushing it through the cardboard applicator. "Cool, look! It is attached to a string!"

Well......I began, and then did a quick scan of my energy level. I decided I didn't have the energy to explain how tampons are used, and also I didn't want to scare him. Earlier in the school year, I heard that Asher was explaining to other kids how babies were born during Grandparents day in Kindergarten class. Some of the grandparents were complaining. I figured that if he knew this new information, he may not be able to keep it to himself.

So I said something vague about it being used to soak up blood. I didn't want to lie. "Can I put one in my first aid kit?" Asher asked innocently.

"Sure" I said, "That would be a perfect thing for your first aid kit"

I wondered if he would remember this day, sometime when he was older and could comprehend the use of those strange white things with the string attached.