Eggs, like chickens!

"Mom, when do you find out what the baby is going to be?" Aidan asked a week or so ago as I was putting him to bed.

"When it is born," I said.

"Why not before?" he asked.

"Because we like it to be a surprise," I told him. "But I have to warn you Aidan, we are kind of guessing it's a girl, although we don't know that for sure."

"Well that's ok, you can have a boy next time," Aidan replied. I chuckled.

"No, there won't be a next time, Aidan," I said.

"How do you know?" he asked, sitting up on his make-shift bed. (He has decided he prefers to sleep on the floor of the playroom rather than deal with sharing a room with Liam who is not always ready for sleep.)

"Well, we will do a medical procedure to make sure we can't have any more babies," I explained.

"They can do that?" he asked. "How?"

I paused for a moment, not wanting to dive into the details of vasectomies since that would require explanation of WHY that would work.

"Um, well you see Aidan, they can do what is called a tubal ligation," I said, hoping to stop there.

"What's that?" he inquired. Doh. Where to begin....

"You see, in each female body there is an organ called the uterus. Let's say my fist is the uterus," I said, holding up my fist. "Keep in mind though, my fist is bigger than an actual uterus."

"Wait, I'll get something smaller then," he said, running over to the play kitchen and throwing me a small bunch of green plastic grapes.

"Great, so, let's say these grapes are the uterus," I went on. "So, the uterus starts small like this but can grow and grow while a baby is made inside," I explained, rubbing my big ol' belly and showing him about how far up my uterus had grown. He was impressed. "Off to each side of the uterus are these little organs called ovaries," I said, making little o's with each hand above the grapes.

"Ok, let me find something for the ovaries," he said. I stopped him and told him we didn't really have time for all the visuals.

"The ovaries are connected to the uterus by tubes called the fallopian tubes. A tubal ligation is where they make little incisions in a woman, one for a camera so they can see and another for this instrument that has something like a laser on it to cut the tubes to prevent women from having babies," I said, emphasizing the idea of lasers in hopes it would steer him toward another subject, like Star Wars perhaps. Or anything else really.

"Well, how does that prevent her from having babies?" he questioned, ignoring the bait.

"Sooo, the ovaries have all these little eggs in them and ever so often they travel down the tubes into the uterus where they can grow into a baby. If the eggs can't travel down the tubes, because the tubes are cut, then they can't get to the uterus to grow into a baby," I explained, hoping to sidestep any further questions about just HOW that egg becomes a baby.

"So wait, ALL girls have eggs inside them, like chickens?" he asked.

"Generally speaking, yes, although not anywhere close to that big!" I said. "They are formed when we are growing in our mommy's tummy so we have millions of tiny eggs waiting inside us when we are born."

"So, then Madeline can GROW A BABY?!" he asked, freakily excited.

"No, she can't right now because her body has to mature first," I said, wondering when this conversational workout would end.

"What do you mean, mature?" he wanted to know. Of course.

"So, right now you and Madeline are little kids but in a few years, around when you become teenagers, you will go through what is called puberty. During puberty, your body will become more adult-like. So, you know how daddy has hair under his armpits and on his face? Well, you will start growing hair like that. Your voice will change, get squeaky at first and then deeper and you will start looking more like a man."

"What about Madeline?" he asked.

"Well, she will go through a similar process, only she will become more like me and then will be able to have babies, you know, after she is married," I explained.

"Well, of course she has to be married first," he said. "But...."

"But now it is time for you to go to bed," I said. "Good night!"

"Ok, good night."

Ooo, ooo, ooo, ask me another one!