"I'm twelve years old - I shouldn't have ANY balls in my pants!"

Ah, Twelve. Your gleeful enjoyment of certain types of bodily humor just never gets old, does it? First it was the basic functions, when any mention of poop, pee, or farting was good for a laugh. In particular, the word "fart." For several years now, just saying "fart" to Twelve triggers helpless laughter. Saying it several times in a row heightens the effect, until she gets to that stage where you know she's forcing herself to keep going.

In the last few months, Twelve has become increasingly aware of the nuances of body part humor. Between my feminism and R's science, we pretty much just use all the words, and Twelve's starting to pick up on this. Gonads, testicles, junk, bosoms, breasts, sexuality ... just say the word, and she laughs, even when she has no idea why. She just knows it's somehow sexual or about boys and that's good enough. I figure we may as well expose her to everything (that's not contributing to oppression or otherwise harmful, I mean) and that she'll either get it, in which case she's fine, or it will go over her head, in which case, again, she's fine.

For awhile there, she even experimented with appending "That's what she said" to things that female-identified persons had said. No clue about the sexual innuendo. It was HILARIOUS. I never did manage to write down a direct quote, but it was along the lines of me saying something like "Grandma told me she's going to come to your volleyball game tomorrow" and Twelve saying, under her breath in a way that totally gave away the fact that she was just testing it out, "That's what she said."

Today we woke up to a couple of inches of fresh snow, which is unusual enough that we bundled up for a walk. Somehow, Twelve was wearing tight pants that didn't want to stay up. As in, she's bending over to scoop up a handful of snow, and her pants are down around her butt. Cue general mockery (on the part of the adults) and show-offy, hopping-around, wedgie-picking (Twelve's response).

(When it comes to her wardrobe, I don't ask questions and I don't demand anything other than relative weather-appropriateness. Luckily Twelve is modest and the worst I ever have to do is grouse about how cold she must be and tell her to put on another layer. It's like that Family Circus cartoon where Dolly tells the little brothers that they have to put on sweaters because Mommy's cold.)

Anyway, naturally Twelve and R started throwing snowballs at each other (Twelve's ability to do this being significantly impaired by uncontrollable laughter). I - threatening DIRE consequences should I become collateral damage - ended up back in the house, posting on Facebook that no one need worry about the shrieking because it's just a snowball fight. Soon enough, in they came, R with snow inexplicably packed in behind his glasses and Twelve with snow, well, everywhere.

During dinner, in between overly dramatic complaints about too-numerous green beans, Twelve accused R of putting a snowball down her pants. I retorted with something about it being awfully easy when her pants were falling off. Twelve, who I sometimes fear is practicing to be a stand-up comic, pretty much ended the conversation with a fairly well-timed, "I'm twelve years old - I shouldn't have ANY balls in my pants!"

I doubt she really meant it this way, but my feeling is: No, no, you shouldn't. Let's hold off on anybody getting into your pants for a few more years, shall we?