Sunday, October 17, 2010

Where do babies come from? A parent's squeamish moment.

Did you ever notice in the say, 3-9 year old crowd of children that quite often you will be blindsisded by a question with a..... er.... ummmm delicate subject matter?

It's not unusual for my oldest to choose to ask one of these questions, and then some simple answer will suffice, and I will breathe a sigh of relief that more of the sensitive conversation can happen another day..... perhaps when daddy happens to be the one with him <grin>

So, we've had the conversation about babies being in a mommy's tummy. Other times he wanted to know how the baby moved, and there was a conversation about the bag of waters, how it protects a baby...... and how they swim.
Then, eventaully there was the conversation about how when the baby comes, the bag of water breaks...... and a lady goes into 'something' called labour.

Well it's been a few months since we've had one of these conversations and I haven't really got much of a clue what he thinks about in between..... Clearly there has been thought though. Because the other day we got an oddball question. RIGHT out of left field.

"When the baby's bag of water breaks and the lady goes into labour, are you allowed to eat?"

"Well that depends on whether you are at the hospital or at home during labour" (Sometimes this sort of odd answer will suffice)
"Oh?" (Here's me thinking... oh man, this isn't one of those times we're not gonna be happy with one answer, is it?)
"Why would it matter?"

"Well, Happy sometimes the doctors aren't happy if you eat during labour."

"But WHY would it matter?" (Oh why, oh why, must be discuss the possibility of evacuation during labour today?! <yikes> )

After telling him why, he got this really wide-eyed look on his face, and it occurred to him how the baby gets out...... AND FROM WHERE! This was somewhat humourous to him, and a little on the 'shock and awe' side for our conversations.

Thank the LORD that was enough to discourage him from asking how the baby got in there in the first place.... or maybe it just hasn't occurred to him to ask yet....

Don't worry, one day he'll take me by surprise and ask me..... Don't you worry about that. I NEVER get away from these things.