The Facts of Life

When it comes to anatomy and physiology, Elly is on top of her game. She understands bone v. muscle, blood through the heart, oxygen through breathing, the way cuts and bruises heal, etc. She knows what death is and hates the very idea. She knows a penis from a vulva, and how adults look different from kids.

And, being my child, she not only knows how babies are born, she is highly interested in the whole process. She saw my cervix when she was 3 years old (thank you, Beah). Also at barely three, when my periods came back after Kessa's birth, she asked all sorts of questions and learned about periods. ("What's that?" "Blood." "Do you have an owie?" "No, that just happens to grown-up mommies when there's no baby in their belly." "Why?" "Because babies need the blood to grow, but if there's no baby the mommy doesn't need the blood so it comes out." "But why isn't there a baby in your belly?" "uuuuuuhhhhhh." "I know why... because it already came out! It's Kessa!") She knows that babies start out tiny and grow bigger until they're real babies who are ready to come out. She knows they come out the vagina and the vagina stretches wide to let the baby through, and that it can hurt but that's OK because it does not harm the mommy. She knows that some babies come out at the hospital, some in a "midwife house" and some at home. She knows that some babies have to come out through a cut in the mommy's belly. She knows that sometimes mommies have two babies in their belly.

And she recently figured out a very important fact of life: that all of this is the domain of women. Men do not give birth.

"Mommy, why can't men have babies?"
"Because they don't have a uterus."

That satisfied her for a week. Then came:

"Mommy, men don't have uteruses, right? What do men have instead of a uterus?"

OK, where do babies come from I was prepared for. What do men have instead of a uterus... not so much. I can't remember exactly what I said, but I think it was something about we could look in a book together and see what's on the inside of a man's body. She hasn't brought it up again, so she still doesn't know what a man has instead of a uterus... and I have a feeling when it comes up again, I'll also be explaining how the baby gets in the mommy's uterus.