All the adoption talk this summer has increased Zoe's interest in how babies are born (same thing happened when we were in China, see here!). Zoe had already mastered how the baby got in there ("the man plants the seed . . .) -- on my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, I was encouraging the girls to ask them questions about their wedding, their honeymoon (what did you wear, where did you go?) and Zoe asked, "So, on your wedding night, did you get naked and did Grandpa put his penis in your vagina?" ACCCKKKKKKKK! We had a loooong talk about asking inappropriate questions that night!
But back to this summer, she became interested in how the baby came out. Which leads me to another funny story from a friend with daughters adopted from China. One morning, her daughter was watching some cartoon with a pregnant anthropomorphic bunny. She yells to her mom in the next room to ask how the baby gets out of a mama's tummy. Her mom yells back that it comes out the mama's VAGINA. Her daughter replies, "What?!? It comes from CHINA?!" But I digress. . .
First, we had to clarify exactly where in the "tummy" the baby is. Zoe asks, is it the same place where your food goes? Nope, there's a special place called the uterus, and off we go on an internet search for a drawing of a woman's body with the uterus (I was telling a friend about it, and she shared that her sons are going to be hopelessly confused about human anatomy -- they were taking the dreaded sex-ed portion of Health class, and came home with diagrams of the human body, both male and female. And lo and behold! The female was missing her bladder! I love public education . . . . )
Second, Zoe asks whether it hurts to have a baby. I explain about childbirth, and say that, yes, it does hurt. Zoe then asks, "Did it hurt my birth mother to have me?" I say yes, it probably did, which makes Zoe cry. "I'm sad that it hurt my birth mother to have me."
Third, Zoe and Maya both decide that, since it hurts to give birth, they are just not going to get married. See, getting pregnant is apparently automatic upon marriage in their worldview. I explain that people can be married and not get pregnant, and that people can get pregnant and not be married, but they persist in their belief that marriage = pregnancy. I'm not sure how they reconcile that with all our married friends who have adopted. In any event, they are never getting married, but they are going to adopt babies.
Lastly, comes the title for this post (took me long enough to get there, huh?). The other day, 4-year-old Maya is complaining that her tummy hurt, and was getting considerable attention from mama because of it. Seven-year-old Zoe decides to add her moan: "Well, my uterus hurts." Oh, baby! Just wait!
LOL!
ReplyDeleteWe have been reading It's Not the Stork for over a year and it is great M knows the truth, but also leaves for some funny moments. She asked us one morning if we had "the special love" that the book describes the night before! And has many times comes in and give us a lesson on her vulva and the body parts. sigh
It has been a great blessing in her understanding of bio vs adopted though. I got the book because of those issues of thinking all Asian kids were adopted and her questioning of was she born like her cousin. It worked and I would highly recommend it! Just be prepared for nipple, vulva, and penis discussions.
I just found a book at the half-priced book store last night -- Where Willie Went. Willie is a sperm, and he's bad at math (sums, in the book -- it's British), but a great swimmer. He makes it Mr. Brown to Mrs. Brown's egg, and "disappears" in the egg, which grows until a baby is born. So where did Willie go? I don't know, but the little girl is bad at sums and a great swimmer.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a cute way to talk more about genetics, and that the girls get qualities from their birth father and their birth mother.
I haven't shown it to the girls yet -- I'll wait for an "acute phase" of baby-making curiosity!