On the eve of his third birthday - well before I was pregnant again - Westley suddenly became very extra double-curious about babies inside mommies. Specifically, when he was the baby inside this mommy. And his new favorite question became "how?"
"How did I get inside your belly, Mommy?"
"Daddy put you there."
"How?"
"With his penis."
This got a huge smile. I think Westley thought I was joking. "How did he do that?"
I walked right into that one, didn't I?
Rob and I exchanged looks. "You know," I said to Westley, "I think this would be easier to explain if we had a book. With pictures. Should we look for a book about how babies get inside mommies?"
Westley practically jumped up and down. "Yeah!"
I am on this! I am probably the only person in the world who's excited to talk with her preschooler about sex. But I can't help it. I think reproduction is magical and rad.
So we hit up the library. I came armed with a list call numbers that I'd looked up at home beforehand to minimize Westley's wait time. I glanced quickly through Where Did I Come From? and quickly remembered how skeeved out by it I was as a child. (I'm sure many people find the super-cartoony illustrations tasteful and non-threatening. As a child, I found them ugly and off-putting, and I can't seem to shake that impression.) I settled on It's So Amazing!, and When You Were Inside Mommy.
"How does the baby get out?"
For about six weeks now, we've been talking about the Special Tube called the 'vagina' that's very, very stretchy - stretchy enough to let a baby out. And how babies are small and flexible.
"But how does the baby come out?"
"The muscles in the mommy's uterus squeeze, and the mommy pushes the baby out through the vagina."
This is clearly making sense and making no sense at the same time. Westley can't wrap his mind around it. "But...how?"
I just smile. Because I can't really believe it either.
