Only off the coast of Southern California and Baja, live these funny little sardine-like fish. Every year, they come out on a full moon and get jiggy with it. The females come on shore, dig their little hineys into the sand, wriggle around a bit, squeeze out some eggs, and then wink at the boys. The male grunion slither up with their “I see you looking at me” attitude, wrap around the female, and fertilize the eggs.
Or something like that.
And every year, a bunch of us silly humans show up to interrupt their baby-making ritual.
Instead of just showing up with flashlights to screw up their screwing, we first get together with other families at our church to do a science lesson. Yes, we DO teach science at our church! AND we believe in dinosaurs!! Crazy, right?
Anyway…
The lesson starts with a slide presentation and I’m pretty sure it covers everything I ever need to tell my kids about sex. ((buries head in sand)) Then we move on to go hatch some eggs in baby food jars, check them out under microscopes, and then paint some dead ones. I’m not sure what the painting has to do with it. Maybe it’s like women putting on make-up to get a guy to check her out?
Yeah, I think that was it.
So if you are running out of ways to explain the Birds and Bees to your kids, let my kids and me explain… with Grunion and a banjo:
DISCLAIMER: Sugar Jones and Aiming Low are not responsible for the spawning of any of your children… that we know of. *wink*
About Sugar Jones
Um, perhaps you didn’t grow up in Cali, but that line about “let’s go watch the grunion run” is pretty much just a way for young men to trick their girlfriends into going down to the beach at night with them. Sure, we’ve all seen the movies, and marine biologists try to say otherwise, but human, not fish, is the main kind of breeding during the grunion run.
California, born and raised! But the line I always got was, “Let’s go make out on the beach.” ;)
Twitter Name: SugarJones
Heading off to google grunion. ;)
Twitter Name: Janie Snelson
They aren’t very tasty, so I hear.
Twitter Name: SugarJones
What did I get out of this besides you are the funniest blogger out there…. I LOVE that your church teaches the kids about the “birds and the bees”. I wish more churches weren’t so scared about talking to kids about sex.
Carrie, thank you!! ;)
Twitter Name: SugarJones
What did I get out of this besides you are the funniest blogger out there…. I LOVE that your church teaches the kids about the “birds and the bees”. I wish more churches weren’t so scared about talking to kids about sex.