The birds, the bees, the girls, and me

We were on our way to an appointment, and Fiona was talking about being in the hospital. "Nora, you didn't stay in the hospital when you were born like I did." This was a little bit true. I explained that EMTs had to take Nora to get checked out, and she ended up staying the night just for observation, but she really wasn't born in the hospital like Nora. Those ambulance drivers just scooped up me in my pajamas and Nora in her blanket and we took off.

This started a long conversation about clothes that veered off into how babies are made. Hmmmm... I knew this conversation would come, and as a rule of thumb I tell Fiona just as much as she needs to know to answer her question. I said, "Well, do you remember that book we have at home called Mommy Laid an Egg? We saw in that book that. . . "

Fiona interrupted me with hoots of laughter. "Yeah, Mom. That book says babies come out of a TOOTHPASTE TUBE!" And it does. The parents in the book make up a number of ways that babies are not actually born. But in the end the kids explain to their parents how babies are made. I thought Fiona absorbed this information a long time ago-- along with the DK What's Inside? Baby book we have which explains how humans, ponies, dogs, porcupines, birds, crocodiles, wallabies, and sea horses grow and are born. But those just seemed like funny little stories to Fiona. The inferences made in these books just seemed too preposterous to her.

I thought about that for awhile. Then I remembered standing next to the giraffes at the zoo when we first moved to town and thinking those animals seem preposterous, too. Narnian, almost. So I didn't press the issue. One day, though, we're going to have more explaining to do.