birds and the bees

I thought I had more time before this came up. No. Really. I did. But Ada's current BFF has a little sister and Ada is also a smart and curious little monkey. You combine the two and the inevitable occurred.

"Mommy. When I was a baby. Before I was born. How did I get in your belly?"

Now I'll preface this with the fact that when Ada asked about her belly button we went over the whole - "you were in my belly to grow and I needed a way to feed you" discussion. It took a few turns but she grasped that concept pretty quickly and and no further questions.

But not now.

No.

It was time for the talk.

I've long believed that I would do as my parents did and use the proper terminology and be straight forward with all talk about the body and reproduction. So when the question first hit about 5 minutes into our 30 minute commute home I started in on the truth. Leaving out some of the graphic details - she is only 3 for goodness sake.

So the story we aligned on was that there was an egg from mom, and a sperm from dad (yeah that was a fun explanation), and they were both very small so small you can't really see them. Well they got together and made an Ada and she grew in my belly until she was strong enough to get out.

That should have worked for a three year old with a short attention span. Right? Not so much. She spent the rest of the car ride (about 20 minutes) grilling me.

"So you picked me out?"

"Yes. Well, sort of, your egg was very aggressive, it pushed its way to the front"

"So then, daddy liked my egg?"

"Yes. Well, sort of, daddy's swimmer (that's what she called it) was fast and liked your egg."

And so on, and so on... I have never been so happy to see our driveway.

Well it sank in. Ada has now given the birds and the bees talk to several of our hockey friends, both Elliot and I, and I'm guessing all of her class and her teachers.

Well the other night, as she was talking it through with us she informed us that the egg and swimmers were really small, so small you couldn't pick them up with your hand. So I asked her if she knew how they came together.

I wish I hadn't. Only. It was so funny. So so funny. That as soon as it came out, I knew I had to write about it.

She said, well the swimmer goes into your mouth and down into your tummy to find the egg and you go like this. And she sat there with her mouth really really wide open for what was probably only a few seconds but felt like an eternity. And she was sure. No she was positive with a capital P that she was correct. I swear, that is not what we told her. I mean never. Never with a capital N, never.

I started to correct her. But she quickly grew bored of my insistence that she was wrong. So I finally asked her if she really (I mean REALLY REALLY) wanted to know how it all worked. Luckily for me she quipped 'No' and quickly jumped off to some other topic.

We will eventually correct her on the full story, but for now, according to Ada, we picked her out and that is the end of the story. As much as I think it would be great if this were true, truth be told, we just got lucky!