Skip to main content

Where Do You Get Babies?









My eight-year-old son brought up the dreaded question last night. I’ve explained this phenomenon before, but unfortunately kids need different forms of information as they age. I gave him the short run-down (again) but my narrative was followed by the inevitable slew of questions.


Kid: What if you had another baby?

Me: I'm not.

Kid: But what if you did?

Me: The world would implode... I mean, don't worry about it. I'm not.

Kid: But so where do you get babies?

Me: Costco. Or in your case, Target. Target has everything, right?

Kid (glaring at me): Mom!

Me: Remember your book? From Mommies and Daddies.

Kid: But how?

Me: Well, people have to have sex.

Kid: What???? Oh my God!

Me (nodding): Yes. It’s true.

I then gave him a unnecessarily lengthy description of IVF in the vain hope that his interest in science would distract him from further interrogation.

Kid: So which one did you do to have me? Sex or the other one?

Me: I did not have IVF.

Kid (look of hysteria and disbelief crossing his face): Did YOU have SEX?

Me (clearing my throat): Um… yes.

Kid (thinking for a moment): Just that one time?

Me (pondering various four-letter words, then pausing way too long): That’s private.

Kid: Oh my god!

-Jessica


Comments

A.K. Alexander said…
Am really happy my 8 year-old has only asked about periods so far. She will hopefully believe there is a baby section at Target. I'm planning ahead.
Dru said…
You gotta love kids and the conversations they get you into.
Shel said…
LOL well, we knew Nick was precocious...*grin*.

Popular posts from this blog

Guest Blogger Jessica Park and Chapter One of "Cook the Books."

I am very happy today to have my good friend Jessica Park share the first chapter of her next book, "Cook the Books," due out in March. If you haven't read a Gourmet Girl Mystery, you need to. They're everything a good mystery should be and more--They're funny, romantic, mysterious(duh) and just plain fun. Do yourself a favor and read the entire series. You won't be sorry! Without further ado... Chapter 1 I have a love-hate relationship with Craigslist. On the one hand, I adore poking through the online classifieds for items I don’t even want—Swedish bobbin winders, chicken coops, vintage Christmas ornaments—and for enviable extravagances that I can’t afford—like the services of someone to come to my house to change the cat litter. On the other hand, I hate getting sucked into the vortex of randomly searching for weird items and unaffordable services instead of looking for what I actually need. For example, at the moment, I absolutely had to find a part-time j...

Powerless and Pissy

(The kid and I wrote this blog yesterday, but I'm happy to say we now have power!) Oh. God. Killlll meeeeeee! It’s Friday night and we haven’t had power since just before midnight on Thursday. I’m a baby about this. People have gone without the comforts of electricity for much longer than this, but I am near the edge of insanity. I have zero coping skills. Thursday 12: 10 a.m.: Wind is atrocious. Howling, annoying, relentless. The last woman is about to skate her individual Olympic performance and the power cuts out. Not that I even really follow women’s ice-skating, but I was following it at the moment. The noise outside is enough to wake the dead and I’m hearing something suspicious going on with the deck. I could maybe tolerate noise and fear of exploding transformers, but I cannot sleep without my beloved white noise machine. Will pray that husband falls into some sort of rhythmic and soothing snoring pattern. 12:35 a.m.: Husband is indeed snoring, but sound is laced with a...

Mental Health Awareness Month

So May is Mental Health Awareness month. May has been observed as such since 1949 and was started by the Mental Health America Organization. I've gone back and forth on addressing this topic, which is quite personal to me and thus decided on the two days before the month's end to go ahead and relay my personal story in dealing with someone who was once very close to me and who suffered from mental illness. I'm sharing this in the hope that someone reading this recognizes any of it as being a piece in their life that they might be comforted, seek help or have some kind of positive result from it. I have shared some of this story almost a decade ago and to this day I receive a few e-mails each year from someone who themself is afflicted with deep depression and having suicidal thoughts, or from someone who has suffered a loss due to suicide. To find that original article, you can check it out here https://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/a-fathers-suicide/ I'm not...