My older daughter is in elementary school now and I see a huge difference in her since she started in September. She's coming more into her own; she's getting taller and more agile, and she's definitely becoming more sophisticated. In fact, you know how you always hear about those kids in kindergarten who ask 600 questions that are almost impossible to answer and think 'thank god my kid doesn't do that' and then you forget all about that thought because it's not happening to you?
Well my kid IS doing that. She's asking me a million hard-to-answer questions and I never said I was going to win mother of the year so I'm having trouble answering.
But answering I am.
It started a few months ago with the death thing. I think that conversation went ok except now whenever she talks about certain (older) family members she reminds me that they're going to die soon. Because they're old. And that's what I said, right?
Awesome.
Then it was how do babies get made.
So, not a big fan of bullshitting my kids, I might have said that a mommy and a daddy make a baby (she reminded me that God helps, gotta love that Jewish school) and I was like, ya, that's right. And a baby grows inside a mom for nine months and when it's baked it gets to come out and join the world.
"But where does it come out of, Mom?"
I pretended I was sleeping because really. How do you explain all this to a 5-year-old?
The real doozy came the other day when she asked me how two daddies get a baby. Perfectly fair question, I realized, since one of the kids in her class has two dads.
"T has no Mommy. He has two daddies," she told me on the way to school. Later that night, she inevitably wanted the details.
"But if T has two daddies, where did he come out of?"
I tried pushing her off. "Let me think of an explanation that you'll understand," I begged her, but she was having none of it."
"Tell me now."
K. So I fumbled around for a bit and then took a stab at explaining adoption.
"Sometimes, a lady gives a very big present to other people." I went on to explain why this happens sometimes and threw in the two daddies as an example. "A lady becomes pregnant with a baby, and when the baby's born, she gives the baby as a gift to the daddies, so they can raise it and love it and be its parents."
So I see her turn her head to me, eyes all wide and I think, I wonder how I did.
Next thing I know, my 5-year-old looks at me and in perfect seriousness she says to me, "Mommy, how come you didn't give Sabrina away as a present?"
