Whenever there is a new addition to the family, the older additions are bound to raise some questions about what is happening and how it may affect them. For Pea, she mostly just likes to jab my belly and say, "Hurt baby?" and then thinks it's hilarious when I say, "Yes!" and push her away. Princess, on the other hand, is old enough to raise some serious questions about the miracle we call new life, mostly how the heck does a baby grow in there and how did it get there in the first place? Honestly, we have been talking about this topic off and on for awhile now. Several of her friends' Mommies had new babies, so the topic of how babies are made has come up before. Now, my husband and I have always said that as soon as the kids ask what sex is, that we would be honest about it and just tell them so that the topic is out in the open. Thus, our children will feel perfectly comfortable coming to us with all their questions about this topic throughout life, and will have very healthy ideas about sex and their own developing bodies. (Please don't ruin this for us yet-we are having a great time living in blissful ignorance that this may not in fact work...) I don't think, however, that we planned for the question to be raised at age 4. Not that I have a problem telling Princess about all of this-the problem is that I am afraid to turn her on the rest of the world with this information. She has a habit of telling anyone and everyone about the new facts she has learned in life, often to the surprise of myself in front of strangers as she describes a conversation I had no idea she was listening to. When she first asked where babies come from, I decided to take the easy route. I told her that girls have eggs and that boys have seeds, and that when a boy gives a girl a seed, it goes into the egg and makes a baby. She was fascinated enough by this not to ask HOW the seed got into the egg, so I decided not to pursue it. Of course, this conversation probably could have waited until we weren't on our way to grocery shop at Whole Foods, as we would soon be in public with her questioning this new information. When we went to check out, our cashier was a woman and our bagger was a man. Well, my Princess lit up when she saw them standing next to each other, and immediately shouted, "Hey Mommy! That's a girl and that's a boy! The girl has eggs and the boy has seeds!" Then, to the cashier, "Hey! Did you know that if he gives you his seeds and puts them in your eggs that you can have a baby??!!!" She looked at them, eyes bright, sure that she has just brought two souls together to make this wonderful new life. This moment was made even more awkward by the fact that the cashier was a woman in her 50's while the bagger was probably 17 and had just learned what sex was himself when he lost his v-card earlier that summer. Plus side? I have never had my groceries packed up faster in my life.
So, you can see why I was reluctant to tell Princess the details. That conversation could have actually been MORE awkward with a statement like, "Hey! If you put your penis in her vagina you can make a baby!" Also, I was kind of afraid that if she knew what sex was, she may actually try it. Not that it would be a sexual thing at her age, merely a curiosity, but explaining that one on a psychiatrist's couch at age 20 is not something I was trying to have happen. The time came recently, however, when I was forced to tell her the truth. You see, I had always assumed that if I didn't tell her how the seeds got into the eggs, that she would just chalk it up to magic and move on. I found out I was mistaken, however, in a hilariously embarrassing moment with my brother. Uncle P and his girlfriend (who Princess calls "girlfriend") came to visit, and Astoria went into her recent explanations of the fact that I am pregnant, that I will be having a baby soon, and that my tummy is getting big. Then she said, "Yeah, Mommy swallowed Daddy's seeds and they went down into her belly and got into the eggs and made a baby!" Ok, so I mean, in her mind, that makes sense. The baby is growing in my belly, so why would she assume that the stomach is a different organ than where the baby is? Really, it was quite smart of her to put this together, but as all of our dirty minds went to the same place, all three of us spit the lunch we were eating all over the table as we did the embarrassing "I can't believe that just happened" laugh. Princess, thinking she has just told a great joke, continued: "Yeah! Daddy put a bunch of seeds in her mouth and she crunched em all up and then swallowed them and they went down and now they are a baby!" At this point I told Princess it was time to go to Grammy's house and shouldn't she go find her shoes?
Bluck! Gross! Mommy! That's gross! STOP TALKING!" At the end, I asked her if she understood. She said, "Mommy can we talk about something that's not gross now? Let's watch that elephant being born again!" The You Tube videos that had made me cringe were incredibly interesting to her, and were evidently somehow less gross than how the baby elephant got inside the Mommy's belly. A fact I should probably be happy about, but I somehow feel like this topic was left not fully explained that she might have even weirder ideas about the whole process now. She hasn't brought up the subject since, so I am curious to see how long it will take her to be grossed out before she decides to pursue the topic again. In the meantime, if you happen to bump into us, be prepared. You may get informed about something you never thought you would ever be discussing with a child in line at the grocery store.
No comments:
Post a Comment