Seeking Some Prudent Advice

When we decided to start indoctrinating Sam's brain with potty training, we went out and bought Once Upon a Potty. If you are unfamiliar, well, the only detail that is important to this story is that the book comes in a 'boy' version and a 'girl' version. Each is tastefully, simply, anatomically correct. Naturally, since Sam is a boy, we selected the version with Joshua and his potty training adventures. The book was a big hit and he would request it over and over as part of the bedtime story regime.

Back in October I did a review of the new edition of Once Upon a Potty for the Parent Bloggers Network. As part of the process they sent up copies of the new, board book edition. Copies, as in plural. As in we now own the 'boy' and 'girl' versions of this wonderful story.

For a while, the Prudence edition sat on the shelf. One day, however, I noticed it in Sam's bed. He routinely sleeps with at least a dozen books, so I wasn't too surprised. If he thinks the book supply in his bed is running low, his m.o. is to just sweep as many books as his tiny arms can hold off of the shelves and under the covers. Titles don't always matter as long as certain tomes are always there and the quantity is high. Therefore Prudence ended up in his bed. 

Wow, that didn't come out right at all. This is all sounding so wrong and romance novel-y, isn't it? Well, it's going to get worse before it gets better people.

That night he presented both books to me for story time. Demanding Prudence first, I opened it to the first page which features Prudence's mommy and Prudence, sans clothing. 

Immediately Sam pointed to the, uh, area. Now, I'll admit that we've been a little remiss in explaining the difference between girls and boys to Sam. A few months ago his teachers told us that he was the only kid in the class who couldn't really differentiate between the sexes or correctly identify his own sex. After that we tried explain things to him and he seemed to get it, approximately. But maybe he understood things even better than we thought because as soon as he saw the page he blurted out, 'Dats Prudence's pee-pee. It different than Sam's. Prudence has pee-pee like mommy and Lucy and Nunni and Yani. Sam has pee-pee like daddy and pap pap and Joshua.' He then grabbed the Joshua version to show me an illustrated example.

WTF?!?!?!

Guess what his favorite book is now? That's right, Prudence! He still wants to read the Joshua book, too, but only after the Prudence book. And sometimes he wants to read the Prudence book again after reading the Joshua book! 

So do I worry? I know it's normal for toddlers to have some curiosity about the whole genital thing, right? And I'm not convinced that he's so obsessed that it's a  problem. He doesn't carry it around with him or anything. So I should just let this ride and not give it a second though, right?

Unless I ever find that book tucked under the mattress! Then we're going to have a problem!