I'm Scared...the sexy room and fat legs

I'll admit, I am a worrier. Before becoming a parent, sure I was "scared" about things-- but it was usually a fleeting thought and then I moved on. Not so now-- especially since I am the mom of two girls. I think all mothers shudder at headlines involving children being abused and kidnapped, we worry that a bully may push our child around or even worse that the same bully may lash out in unthinkable ways (thoughts of Columbine and Virginia Tech), and we find ourself in a world driven to have "the perfect body". I thought that I had a few more years before I needed to worry about my 5 and 6 year old's body image. Apparently not. My 6 year old asked me the other day why her legs got fat when she sat down. She said that some of the girls in her class (Kindergarten, that is) had skinny legs and they didn't do that. I was mortified, chilled to the bone... I didn't want to make a big deal about it, but I wanted her to know that she had perfect legs. In my best "mommy knows what she's talking about voice", I told her that everybody's legs do that when they sit down and that everybody has different bodies- so some people's legs are skinnier and some people's legs are meatier and some people's legs are muscular. After I finished, she started playing again quietly-- I don't know if I made an impact or not. I'll have to keep my eyes open, though.

This weekend I was doing laundry. I pulled the hampers out to sort the laundry and the girls gathered up some crayons, paper, and a flashlight and crawled into the cabinets (where the hampers usually are) and closed the doors. I later found out that they wrote their name in crayon on the wall inside the cabinet-- but that's another story. I continued what I was doing and let them play since they were being quiet. Hannah stuck her head out and said that she liked playing in the "sexy room". I picked my jaw up off the floor and asked her why it was a sexy room. She said it was sexy because it was fun-- I was relieved thinking she just heard that word from a song or something... but in the back of my mind I'm thinking that at 5 and 6 if they are picking up these words from the radio or TV, what's next? I'm scared!