It’s far too quiet in the house. Where is she? I open my bedroom door and there’s my three year old daughter in all her glory, wearing her princess dress, arms spread wide.

“Look at all these toys I found, Mama!”

She has my black blindfold over the face of her teddy bear. She’s wrapped my pink vibrator in one of her dolly blankets and tucked him into a cozy shoe box, a happy little bedfellow grinding away in full speed vibration and gyration mode. She’s stroking her own cheek blissfully with my feather tickler and revving my vibrator under her foot like a gas pedal.

“Watch Mama, it tickles!” Buzz, buzz, buzz, it goes, under her chubby little toes. She giggles. “Feels good” She says.

Oh yes, Mommy knows. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to gasp in horror or laugh my ass off.

I remember a friend telling me about the time she came across her Mother’s vibrator under the bed while playing hide and go seek. She brought it out, brandishing it at the dinner table. Her mother, mortified, slapped her across the face and snatched her Longfellow. “Don’t you ever snoop through Mommy’s room again!”

I wasn’t about to frighten or shame my daughter. There’s nothing wrong with sex. I do think a person should be open about it. However…

Another friend of mine works for a nanny agency and this one young virginal Catholic girl came back from her babysitting gig truly traumatized, invaded with too much unwanted disclosure. The parents had asked her to play with one child in their bedroom while a therapist worked with the other child in the living room, it being a small condo. The nanny opened the door and the bedroom was covered with intimate pictures of the wife’s various orifices. Then the toddler quickly ran over and threw the closet doors open, revealing whips and masks and chains…

Buzz buzz buzz, “Is this Daddy’s toy, Mama?” My daughter holds up the vibrator and it is still doing the rhumba.

I have to say something. I gently turn him off and quickly pack it away.

“No, that’s not Daddy’s that’s…Mommy’s…”

Couldn’t help but clarify that for my husband’s sake. Good thing she didn’t get to the bottom of the box where his experiments lie…what else do I have in here? Oh yeah, I completely forgot about those…

Buzz buzz buzz. “What’s this for?”

I gently grab the vibrator from under her foot.

“That’s…to…that’s for making Mommy’s back feel better.”

Okay, so my geography is a little off. It’s not a complete lie…

“Want me to buzz you, Mama?” She offers.

“Um, no thank you, honey. This is a private buzzer. But you can tickle me with the feathers if you like.”

She seems content with this. She dusts my nose and giggles.

I let her play with the blindfold and the feather tickler for the rest of the day and put the sex toy box way up high this time. Maybe someday she’ll remember this and laugh. Maybe as a teenager she’ll finally put it all together and think, “My Mom isn’t so square after all…” Until then, I’ll let it remain an odd little mystery for her to unravel.

Photo by Zach Klein.