how am I supposed to answer that?

We make every effort to be honest with our kid. Especially when she asks serious questions. It's a delicate balancing act, finding ways to explain things in a manner that she'll understand but that won't be intimidating. So far it's worked out well enough. Though a few conversations about reproductive organs have led her to prance around the house chanting "Penis, penis, penis, penis!"

Lately, though, she has been asking a lot of pretty deep questions. I will now turn it over to Mimi for a retelling of her recent interrogations.

We have many friends who recently had babies or are about to have babies. Yuki has yet to ask "Why don't I have any siblings?" or "Why don't you have a baby in your tummy?" Thank God, but it has triggered some conversations. The first one was when I mentioned that I saw our friend's baby the other day and she asked, "He is still out?" So I explained that once babies come out, they don't go back in. Then we came across our old videos of when Yuki was a baby and she wanted to watch a bunch, one of which was moments after she came out. We did not prepare her for some of the things she was about to see (nothing graphic, but she was covered in goop and the umbilical cord was in view) so at first she was in shock. But then she had 59 questions about why she was covered in blood, why she was crying, why were there scissors on her belly, etc. We covered the bases and talked about how babies first drink milk from mommies (which triggered 83 more questions) and how they are like a seed at first before they grow. I was not totally prepared to answer any of them well but I did the best I could.

Cut to a few days later over breakfast (at 7:45 am), we had a conversation that went like this:

Yuki: How does babies get in mommies' tummies? In the shower?

Me: No...not in the shower.

Yuki: How? Where do they come from?

Me: Well...they come from their daddies, actually.

Yuki: Daddies? From their eyes?

Me: (spit take) No! Not from their eyes.

Yuki: Their nose? Elbow?

Me: ...from their insides....

Yuki: Insides? Like tummy?

Me: Sort of.

I realized I HAVE to buy some books for her on the subject and communicate the exact conversation to Philip. It's like PR for a political office. We have to develop the united front on this and use the same language.

(Philip here. I've had my own share of this lately. I broke it down to a seed and an egg that come together to make the baby. Kiddo asked, "Was I in the egg?" We're working on it. Okay, back to Mimi.)

An experienced parent once told me that babies are tough at first because they are physically demanding and exhausting, but then once they can start to do a lot of things by themselves, they start to torture you mentally. I understood that vaguely at the time but I was too physically exhausted to process it. I am now there and you know what, she was right.