The Birds and The Bees, Ep. 1

I know it's just the first of many, many conversations, but I'm basking in a little premature confidence after our first conversation about…you know. Kind of like the Leafs after scoring early in the first period. And we all know how that turns out.

But I digress.

Here's how it went down one morning this week as E chomped away on her breakfast and I worked away in the kitchen, grateful for a wall separating E from my diverse array of facial expressions:

E: Mom, I want a baby like the one Olivia has.
M: (I knew where she was going with this, but to buy some time I elected to play dumb) Oh, did Olivia get a new doll?
E: No, mom, a baby. I want a baby like Olivia's.
M: Ooooh, did they get a puppy?
E: MOM! A baaayyyyby. A human baby.
M: Oh, you mean her little sister Gracie?
E: YES! I want one! How did they make her?
M: Who? (a little dumb buys a lot of time for crafting answers, I find)
E: Olivia's parents. How did they make their baby?
M: (Obviously she's one step ahead of the stork scenario) Well…(Think, woman. THINK! It's wayyyyy too early…oooh, there's a plant. Go with it!) You know those peas you planted in school?
E: Yeah.
M: Well, making a baby is kind of like making a plant. You need seeds and fertilizer to make a plant, but babies start as eggs. So to make a baby you need an egg and some fertilizer.
E: Where do we get them?
M: Well, the mom has the eggs and the dad has the fertilizer.
E: Can I see them?
M: No, because they're inside out bodies.
E: Oh. So, you just put the egg and the fertilizer together to make a baby?
M: Yep! (please don't ask how you put them together please don't ask how you put them together please don't ask how you put them together…)
E: Can we do it TONIGHT??!
M: Uhhh, no.
E: Why not?
M: Well, babies are kind of a lot of work, so we're going to wait a little while until we're not quite as busy.
E: I can help!
M: Thanks.
E: Tomorrow night?
M: I'll let you know.

To stumble my way through this minefield, I relied on some very good advice I read a while back. Only answer the SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ASKED. Don't go providing all kinds of extraneous detail that they may not be able to understand. She wanted to know how a baby is actually made, not what happens when a man and a woman love each other very much and lie down really close together and…well…one conversation at a time, I say. And I think this one went pretty well. Except that now we have one more person on our case about baby #2.