I bought a bag of mandarin oranges that are supposed to be easier to peel and have fewer seeds than regular oranges. Plus, they’re smaller, so the boys can eat them in one sitting, and they’re perfect for lunchboxes.

No. 2 wanted one at breakfast today and remarked that once it was peeled, it looked like a hybrid between an orange and a pumpkin. “It’s a porange!” he exclaimed, although it sounded like “porn-ge.” I suggested that he might call it an orangekin, instead, because porange might get him in trouble at school.

I can just hear the conversation now: “Hey guys, check it out: I’ve got a PORNge!” The teacher on duty does a double-take, and my 11yo ends up in the principal’s office.

To my blissful surprise, he was unfamiliar with the word, so I explained that the word itself wasn’t a cuss word, but what it stood for was bad, so he ought not to say it. I realized, as we were talking about it, that we’ve had previous conversations about being careful what you look at online and being respectful of our bodies (and other people’s bodies), but I don’t suppose we’ve ever actually used that word to explain it. We’ve talked about how it’s not right to look at pictures of naked people, but I don’t guess I ever said p-o-r-n (<<and I’m only hyphenating it here in an effort to keep the robo-spam comments at a minimum).

So, here’s to easy-peel oranges and uncomfortable breakfast conversation!

P.S. Now that we’ve established that looking at naked people is wrong, how will I explain works of art? Parenting is confusing, sometimes.