Highlight of Girls AND Values vs. Respect for Others?

So, I promised a lighter post focused on the girls today...so here goes (note to reader:  it gets a little heavy towards the end again...Sorry!)

An update on time with my little ones.  I can now no longer leave the youngest unattended, as she has started really crawling, pulling herself up on anything she can--including her big sisters, attempting to follow me, picking up EVERYTHING with her newly perfected pincer grasp, and yanking her sisters hair anytime it comes into range--all within the past two weeks!  Additionally, when I am not looking, the oldest often tries to pick her up and I have walked into the kitchen to catch the middle on dragging her across the floor by her feet.  (The older two think they are helping and I'd rather that than they hate her and ignore her...so, there's lots of  reminders to be gentle.)  Baby also has her first tooth and refuses to eat baby food at the table, crying until I give her something she can pick up to eat.  This means that I no longer can get away with not wiping down the high chair and the floor after every meal or with feeding her before or after feeding her sisters.  She has decided she is a FULL part of this family and I have no right keeping her from participating in everything!  (She has a point!)

 The middle one is becoming more and more obstinate (guess this makes sense since she's less than a month from her second birthday!)  When I ask her what she wants to do for the day or what she did at school her first answer is always "No-ting" followed by a devious little smile.  She no longer lets me rock with her, "No rock Mama, Lei Lei by own self!" which breaks my heart a little bit every time she says it as she's pushing me away both literally and figuratively.  She also enjoys running her finger across the page in a book after me as she repeats the words...particularly to the story "Ralph" which is a clever story where the dog talks using onomatopoeia including "roof," "rough," "bark," and "yep" to answer his owner's questions.  At the same time, she can be so very loving, always having a kiss for her baby sister and tenderly cuddling her stuffed animals as she exclaims, "My baby sick.  Shhh Mama, my baby sleep'n."

The oldest one is truly becoming a child and no longer a toddler.  She loves school and is able to "read" (aka recite from memory) little books that she makes at school.  She also takes swimming lessons at her school and loves to talk about how she went into the deep end and how good of a swimmer she is.  Creating things, or projects as we call creative endeavors at home, is one of her favorite things--she enjoys building, painting and pretending to make food for parties.  She also has her first crush--on one of my husbands friends.  Whenever he is over, she instantly lights up, runs over to him, and climbs all over him.  She will not leave his side the entire time he is there and becomes upset if she is left out of a conversation he is having.

I am so very blessed, not only to have these three incredible girls in my life, but to be able to be an active participant in their lives.

Here's where we get into the deeper stuff.  As you can see, they are all fairly young...the oldest being just two and a half months over three years old but I already see the need to determine what values we want to be teaching them.  I don't mean values that you teach by actions alone, through modeling--those we already have figured out.  But, the more complex ones, about race, gender, family structure, etc.  I say this because on just the drive to school (a mere 15 minutes tops) the issues of children before marriage, where babies come from, why people choose to have babies, and same sex marriages all came up--WITH A THREE YEAR OLD!

Granted, the conversation didn't occur in the same way you would expect it to with a teen, but I had to quickly filter my responses so as to not throw out answers that are not necessarily true.  I want to be honest with my children, but I also don't want to have the birds and the bees talk at 3 years old.  I want to teach them values that are important to myself, my husband, and our family but I also want to teach them respect for individuals who may not value the same things or whose lives may have led them down a different path.  I want them to understand that they can live their own value system without condemning others who may not have the same, I want them to treat everyone with dignity.  Period.

Here is what a part of the conversation looked like:

-Mama, I don't remember being in your belly.
--No honey, you probably don't.  It's hard to remember that time in your life for almost everyone, but you definitely were in my belly.
-Was I in your belly when you and Dada were friends.
--You mean before we were married?  No, you were in my belly a few months later.
-Why?  I wanted to be in your belly before.  I wanted to watch you get married.
(A quick pause as I was hit by the desire to say You're supposed to be married before you have kids and considered the reasons for this outside of the cultural 'it's just what you do' piece I had grown up with.)
--We wanted to be married first, it was kind of like a promise that we would face everything together.  I'm sorry you couldn't see us get married, maybe we can renew our vows in a few years and you can see that.
(There was a little confusion here where she thought I said bells instead of vows and was choosing what color bells my husband and I would have during the bell ceremony.)
-I want to renew my vows too Mama.
--Well, to do it like that, you have to be married.
-I want to get married when I get older.  I want to marry Lorelei (middle sister).
(Silence as I was hit by many things all at once--No, you can't marry your sister--that's wrong!  Your supposed to marry a boy not a girl.  Okay, honey, whatever you want to do.  What values do I want to instill about love and marriage?  All these quickly swirled through my mind.)
--Well, honey, you're not really allowed to marry your sister.  She's already family.  The idea behind getting married is that you are extending your family, making it bigger.  You should marry someone you enjoy spending time with, someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, someone you have fun with and someone who treats you well--
-I'll marry G! (her Godmother)

G happens to be married, but I really didn't want to start on the whole divorce topic while already rather successfully, I think, managing the marriage topic--including same sex marriages and children out of wedlock.  Granted this wasn't an explicit conversation on these topics, but I did the best I could to keep judgements out of it and instill the fact that marriage is a commitment upon which child rearing can thrive and that the most important issue surrounding who you should marry is how well they treat you and whether you can see yourself with them for the long haul.

What about you?  When did you start having explicit conversations with your children regarding these topics?  Have you ever?  How do you instill your familial and/or religious values into your children while also teaching them to value/respect diversity OR are these two things often at odds?