Mommy, Where DO Babies Come From???

We ordered out last week for some Chinese food.

My son was sick, so he wasn't up for eating much. Except for, of course, the fortune cookie. And I have a pretty liberal "sick" policy around here; pretty much anything goes (especially when they are struggling to keep anything down). So fortune cookie you want? Fortune cookie you get.

He opens it up and wants me to read the tiny paper.

It says something about a drunk man's fortune or something like that and since I'm really not up for explaining "drunk" to a three-year-old, I need to think quickly. Motherhood is perfect training for Jeopardy by the way.

I hold up the paper and say, "Um, Superheroes are wise and kind." Yeah. That's it.

Sometimes I surprise even myself.

This look washes over his face like I have just paid him the biggest compliment in the world, he can't even comprehend this statement or wrap his mind around it or contain himself. His eyes get real big and a smile literally bursts forth and he is now gleaming. Because of course, he is a superhero and this fortune is exactly about him. It is for him. He's usually Batman, but a superhero nonetheless and the fortune cookie was about him. And he repeats the fortune over and over again. "Wise and kind, Mommy!" "Wise and kind!" Gosh I'm great.

Now, "kind" he knows. But wise is a little different. I had to explain "wise." And it was almost easy because we had already been talking about "smart" and "brain" earlier in the day.

Because the questions have been rolling in. I thought I was at least a year out from this by they way, but they're coming in fast, one after another, I barely have time to answer them before he's on to the next one. Earlier that day, he wanted to know how his brain worked.

So I said that the brain contains lots of answers and it always wants to know more answers. I asked him questions as an example. "What's that color?" He said, "Red." I said, "See? Your brain had the answer and told your mouth to say it. What are we sitting on?" (Don't say 'brain'.) "The couch," he says. "That's right. Your brain knew that too!" I could see in his face that on some three-year-old level, he was getting it.

Well now I've created a monster because when he realizes his brain doesn't know something, he realizes he needs to give it all the answers and now it seems like his brain won't stop telling his mouth to ask questions!

"How does a frog jump, Mommy?" (He uses his legs.) "How does a car go?" (It uses its wheels.) "But how?" (It has a motor that makes the wheels spin.) "But how?" (It eats gasoline that makes the motor run which makes the wheels spin.) "Why does the fan spin, Mommy?" (It uses electricity from the wires that come in through the top of the fan.) "How?" All of our houses are connected by wires and electricity is in the wires and the electricity in the wires turns the fan on, the lights on, the tv on, all of that."

Blank stare.

Sometimes I think it's funny to overexplain things to see what his reaction is.

On the flip side, there are times where I wish to completely underexplain as much as I can. Like, that particular question that we mothers are not quite ready for once it is asked. You know the one.

You think you have plenty of time to drum up some genius, but no. It comes out when you least expect it. The one and only. THE question.

"Mommy, how do you have a baby?" Or "Where does the baby come from?" Or "How does it get there?" Or "How does it come out?"

He's three-and-a-half. I so wasn't ready for this.

They all came rapidfire, too, one after the other.

And as I began to sift through the questions, I answered each one, thoughtfully divulging just enough information but refraining from too much. I was almost even proud! I was on a roll!

But by the third question, it turned into my mouth answering questions and my mind turning to look at my mouth, saying, "What are you saying TURNIT OFF!" I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into the big ol' hole I was digging for myself and there was nothing I could do. By the end, there was something to do with God having a magic wand and pointing it at my belly and saying "Alacabam!"

Oh boy.

(He's three-and-a-half, he'll forget this by naptime, right?)

I embarrass even myself sometimes. And really, come on. I'm a creative girl. That's the best I could come up with? God has a magic wand?

Sigh.

I swear it all started off so well! I thought I was acing this!

By the end I wanted to turn and run.

And maybe say something supergenius like, "Let's ask your father when he gets home." Which, let's face it would probably go straight back to me in the end anyway.

I hope I have a chance to start over and re-splain. But for now I'll ask you. He's three-and-a-half and I'm interested in the less is more philosophy. While also being somewhat honest. (This sounds like a Craigs List ad). Actually, I would like to say the exact opposite of what I've already said so far. So. Help a mama out. Any tips?

PS. We opened up a second fortune cookie the next day, one that was left over. It said, "Eat your vegetable and you'll grow up big and strong like Popeye."

I swear. I'm not even making that one up.

Thank you, dear fortune cookie people. Thank you.

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I'm over at Shrinking Jeans today too, giving away a pair of running pants from One More Mile! Contest ends today!

Mommy, Where DO Babies Come From???

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2009/11/mommy-where-babies-come-from.html

Fall Favorites: Egg and Bacon Costume (The best pregnant costume EVER!)

As promised, a preggo costume this week! This is a quick costume so if you have a belly (or your husband does!) and you wanna throw something together quickly, here you go: my husband and I as "Bacon and Eggs" for Halloween!

When I was a hundredty months pregnant with my second son, we were invited to a Halloween party and the first thing I thought of to incorporate my belly was: Eggs and bacon.

My husband was thrilled.

I sold him on it because I told him he could wear all black, and just drape some bacon around his neck.

Fake bacon, of course. Real bacon would just be weird. I think he thought I meant real bacon until I started draping bacon-looking foam around his neck and saw his disappointment.

Sorry for the grainy-ness, I'm not even sure where I got the picture from. I think it was our ancient camera. But it looks like real bacon, right?? So here's how you make it.

Note: If you happen to make this costume, won't you let me know how it went and send me pictures? I have noticed a LOT of people coming here to be eggs and bacon this year! Yes, even if we don't know each other, tell me how the costume went!! christieo_7 at msn dot com!

Materials for Egg:
-From fabric store, 6 yds of white felt, kind of stiff
-1 yard of yellow spandex
-glue gun/glue
-strips of stick-on velcro

Directions: I eyeballed this one, to be honest. I held the felt up to my body to see how big I wanted to cut out the circle. I went with right at my neck and then around my thighs. I cut it out in a wavy circle, then used the front as a pattern and cut the back. Then I took the front panel, pushed it up against my belly, and cut a whole around my belly. I glued the front panel to the back panel around the edges, leaving armholes open.

Then, I took the spandex and cut a strip big enough to wrap around my body's midsection and cover up my belly. I cut out strips of velcro and attached them to each end of the spandex so it would close in the back and be hidden by the back panel of the eggwhite. Voila! A costume.


Directions for bacon:

Materials:

-one a big roll of white foam from the fabric store
-black, dark brown, and red spray paint
-plastic string or ribbon

Cut foam into one big 4 foot strip. Then, cut that piece in half, lengthwise. You should have two long rectangles, about 4 feet long. On both strips, use the scissors to make the sides of the bacon wavy all the way up both sides and the tops. Take the strips outside with the spray paint and make sure you have a surface you won't ruin with spraypaint (I put them on a big piece of cardboard on the grass). Along the edges, spray with black spray paint. Then, spray one red stripe down the middle of both pieces. Fill in the rest with some of the brown to get that crisp bacon look. Haha! It is really so easy. Then, cut two holes at the top corners of each piece of bacon. Loop the ribbon or plastic string through the holes on one piece of bacon, then loop them through the holes on the other strip of bacon. You may have to play with the length of the string to suit your loving husband/partner. Have them wear all black.


Stick a fork in it you're done! (How do I look?)

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Hey, I got a PHOTO CONTEST going on today and prizes too -- so get over there and enter!

Fall Favorites: Egg and Bacon Costume (The best pregnant costume EVER!)

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2009/10/fall-favorites-egg-and-bacon-costume.html

Mr. Crab

Nothing like a four-inch long sea creature to make you wanna do the right thing.

I met Mr. Crab at the beach on Tuesday. He was awfully cute, a little hermit crab in his perfect little shell. So why is he in a red bowl, you ask?

Silly, silly mommy who wasn't paying attention. Or thinking. Or something, I don't even know. I completely spaced. Momnesia, probably.

We went to the beach (as stated previously) and the tide was out. Wayyy out. And Poops took a liking to a little girl and when she and her mom took off running toward the water to see a school of dolphins playing, he took off right after them. Which meant a mommy running in a bathing suit yelling after him, of course. And when I caught up with him and we were all ooh-ing and ahhh-ing over the dolphins, I got to talking to the mom. Who happened to have two little hermit crabs.

She gave me one.

I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Look! A hermit crab! Let's watch him come out of his shell and go back in and come back out! It was fun and Poops was getting to watch this little creature do things up close!

So we played at the beach for the day and I had the hermit crab up near our blanket, and somehow when we packed up, he made it into the little red wagon and then into the back of the car.

It started to storm on our drive home, so when we got back to my mom's house, I unloaded the kids but not much else, and got them inside.

Two hours later...

A lightbulb goes off and I remember that there is still a hermit crab in a wagon in my hundredty-thousand-degree car.

Mom of the year.

So I run out and get him and he's fine. I think. I mean, I blow into his shell and there is movement, so that means it's ok, right? And then it dawns on me.

Well, what on earth now?
What does one do with this now that it's home and officially removed from his natural habitat?

So I google away. And promptly realize that I will need the following supplies to sustain a hermit crab. And FYI too.

-A fish tank, and a pretty large one so he can move around

-With a heater so you can keep it humid

-And some humidity thermometer so you know just how humid it is

-Two water dishes, one for salt water, one for un-chlorinated fresh water (there are ways to remove the chlorine if you must use tap, but you can use spring water)
-Some dirt or sand or something to dig in

-Other hermit crabs because they like to socialize. But sometimes they eat each other.

-More shells because they grow out of theirs and like to move

-I am serious.

And then things go wrong with hermit crabs and there is a web site dedicated to the woes of hermit crab ownership and upon reading some of these things, quite like reading about your pregnancy on BabyCenter, I panicked about things being wrong with the hermit crab simply because I removed him from his natural home like a jerk. Oh no, is that the brown stuff they're talking about? Is he oozing? Is he out of his shell for too long? Because it's bad if they're out of their shell for too long! Is he too cold? Shoot! I just put tap water in there, I have to switch bowls and give him a dry one, did I almost kill him with the chlorine? Crap crap crap!

I Googled myself into feeling like a complete terrible person, and realized if I didn't get this hermit crab back to his home, he was not going to survive at all and I wouldn't be able to live with myself. The terror of this thought weighed on my conscience.

So after dinner, my dad agreed to go with me to drop him off at a nearby waterway with brackish water. But there was no sand and I wasn't convinced that he was going to survive here because it wasn't the full-on saltwater and beach that I had stolen him from.

So we went the 20 extra minutes to the beach from whence we got him and I put him back.

And then decided that he wasn't close enough to the water. Yes, I panicked about that too. A 10 minute conversation with my dad about whether or not to put him in or just close to the water. Because I did read that they can drown.
So I moved him closer-ish. I didn't want to put him in the water but I figured he has legs, so if he wants that water, I have put him close enough for him to move toward it if he decides that's what he wants to do. You know, even hermit crabs have choices and free will. Sort of. Except for when a giant human steals you from your home. Anyway, a few minutes after I put him there, it appeared that he was comfortable enough to come out of his shell. Which made me happy and settled my conscience.

My three-year-old asked me if he was happy and I said, "Yes. He's happy now that he's home and he's home just in time for dinner!"

I do hope Mr. Crab is ok and didn't suffer too much from the transport in the little red bowl and the lack of hermit crab food (whatever that would be) and any stress I may have caused (I also read that they get very stressed out). Maybe I should have left my name and phone number on his shell and offered to pay for the years of therapy I may have caused him to seek out.

I know. I stressed out for this little guy. But after a while, he kind of started to grow on me! He even developed a little personality and I grew to like him! And then Poops named him Mr. Crab and it was all over. Once you name something, you're attached. Period.

Anyway, he's back at home now. Probably watching Jeopardy with the family as we speak. And now I can sleep at night knowing I did the right thing.

Mr. Crab

https://babytealeaves.blogspot.com/2009/08/mr-crab.html