The Wonder of It All

(I've been wanting to enter Scribbit's monthly Write-Away contest for several months now and especially loved the "Wonder Woman" topic this month. This older post from when I was expecting Charlie came to my mind, so I reworked it a bit and decided to "send it in." Hope you don't mind a bit of a repeat. Wish me luck! Oh, and check out Scribbit later this week for a list of the other entries - there's always some great reads!)

There are things about each of my boys that I can pick out and say - He got that from me. Or, he got that from my husband. A trip to the grocery store the other day had me pinpointing Cal's inherited traits pretty clearly:

He put California rolls, dark chocolate truffles and purple tulips into the cart and credibly talked me into each one of them...He's my child.

Riding in the car home from the grocery store, he asked after some quiet minutes, "Mom, when you turn off a light, where does the electricity for that light go?" Now, have I ever thought of that? No. Do I know? No. Have I ever cared to know? Actually, not really...He's my husband's child.

So, the summary of genetic manifestation in Calvin: Inclinations toward the delicious, fattening, aesthetic or sentimental - Me. Inclinations toward acquiring unprecedented amounts of information and wondering how or why everything and everyone does what they do all the time - My Husband.

In pursuing his desire for every kind of information, Calvin has asked several times in the past couple weeks, "How does the baby get out?" My husband, who is usually so eager to give anyone and everyone a ride on the super highway of information that is his brain, has kindly handed the answering of this question to me.

I don't really have a problem answering these kinds of things, and long ago determined to be as up front and clear about answering questions like this in an age appropriate manner whenever my kids are asking. But I've put off this discussion for a bit because of visions in my head that my knowledge-imparting (husband's child) four-year-old will share everything he knows about the birth canal with his Primary class at church just as the room gets really quiet...

Anyway, the subject was covered today because he caught the last bit of A Baby Story on TLC. I kinda did it on purpose, letting him see that. Maybe not the best strategy, but he's my first child and keeps asking, so I know he needs to know. I talked about it the whole time we watched, and he took it all in stride, without an excessive amount of shock or disgust or whatever I was expecting. He actually seemed fairly impressed.

Which is why he needed to share the info at dinner with his Dad, who he knows enjoys great and interesting pieces of knowledge. So as we were finishing talking about the opening that mommies have that stays really small until the baby has grown big enough to be born and then it opens up to let the baby out, he concluded in an excited monologue: "And then the lady counts to ten lots of times and the baby just comes out!" Ahem. "Babies are pretty messy when they're first born. But they're so cute and tiny!" A little pause, then, "But how come only mommies get to have babies? What do men get to do?"

Now THAT is a question from a perspective that unfortunately few people have ever really considered. And just like that, I understood in a moment that being a woman and being able to have a baby is one of the most powerful, priceless and precious gifts of life.

But there are always more questions to be answered around here. Cal prefaced one today with, "I've been thinking of this one question...that I just don't know." I thought, Uh-oh. Here it comes. But having been successful with the baby getting out conundrum, I asked him what was on his mind. He asked, genuinely perplexed, "How can ONE person take care of TWO boys all day?" I told him, smiling to myself, that I honestly do not know. So he asked his dad.

His dad told him, without a pause, that the person had to be a superhero.

I love these guys.