Grace has been very curious lately as to exactly how babies get into mama's bellies. She's 7 1/2 if you remember.
She
actually got an eyeful last year thanks to a pregnancy and childcare
book I forgot I had. When Bryon painted and redecorated her room for her
birthday last September, I piled all of her books from her book case in
the entryway including that pregnancy and baby care book. My dad had
gotten it for me before she was born. Now it was just in a stack on top
of her book case used to prop up dolls for viewing.
I had forgotten all about that book.
As
I moved the piles into her room after the redecorating was finished, I
insisted that she be the one to organize her books back on her book
shelf. It was a ridiculous plan because I knew I'd end up reorganizing
them due to my Type A, slightly OCD obsession with that bookcase.
After a while of working on the project, she came out holding THE BOOK and said, "Mama, this is like a doctor book! Look!"
Sure
enough there was a picture of a fuzzy little, dark haired baby crowning
between a mother's legs. It was not cartoony. It was real.
You can imagine the questions that followed. I told her the truth. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it's messy, etc. etc.
At that point it was plenty of information, and mercifully she didn't ask how it got there in the first place. Whew!
This
summer she's begun to put two and two together and has been asking much
more specific questions. At first we just told her she wasn't old
enough to know yet, but like her mother (ahem), she's persistent. She
started pummeling Nana with the same questions.
Bryon took a poll
of parents at his work and it was unanimous that if she's asking
questions it's inevitable that someone would eventually give her
answers right or wrong. And that someone might as well be us. Several of
the parents recommended this book,
Where Did I Come From?
Bryon found the book and last night he read it too her.
Brave, brave Daddy!
I came in at the tail end for the big finish: birth. She didn't ask too
many more questions. It was pretty specific and explained everything.
In great detail. With all the correctly named body parts. Bryon told her
that all animals (mammals) basically do it the same way. Like the
chickens and rooster in our yard.
Every time she sees that rooster going after a hen she thinks they are marrying.
No more.
She
did ask if that's why they squawk all the time. Yes, yes it is. She
also asked why people don't make sounds. Well, we did manage to avoid
that one.
Bryon explained that this was private information and
not to be shared with all of her classmates because some parents do not
want their kids to know about all of this yet. She agreed to be the
keeper of the truth about creation.
We'll see if it sticks. By
the end of August we'll be the heroes or the villains for telling her
the truth and not letting her learn on the bus like everyone else.
I just saw the same author has a book for
puberty too.
Thank God.