Out of the Mouth of Babes

Last time, I was able to clearly deifne parameters of what I would and would not discuss with my fellow humans about my life by purposely leaving out details, even when directly questioned, eg:
"So, do you know what you're having?"
"Yes...we're having a baby!"

"How are you feeling?"
"Great. You?"

Eventually the general public around me got the message, though I would still have to navigate around outstretched hands heading toward my middle or unfunny remarks by perfect strangers. However this time around there's another factor involved--I was pregnant before and produced a child, who is now about 2 and 1/2 and is eagerly exploring her world with her mouth wide, wide open.

So far the private observations we have as a family haven't made it out into the world yet, but I suspect it is only a matter of time. A few months ago, Sydney asked me what a bra was for. I explained it to her absentmindedly. But apparently she then noticed that Daddy didn't wear one, and that Grandma wore a bigger one than Mommy, and this information was so overwhelming that she got the actual word for the body parts in question mixed up, to the point where she blurted out to Grandma and me:

"Grandma has big hips!.... and Mommy has little ones!!"

Over the weekend we ended up talking about how one feeds a baby. I explained the baby couldn't eat cookies or crackers because it wouldn't have any teeth at first, and somehow stumbled onto the subject of breastfeeding. We've also, over the course of the month, discussed several times why Mommy now wears a bra to bed. At one point I tried to correct her understanding of the actual word, resulting in a confusing mishmash of a word which isn't "hips" and isn't "nipples" but may be something resembling "hippos". And finally this morning the whole thing came to a head when Daddy came upstairs to explain that Sydney wanted to wear her blue bra because she was going to make milk for the baby and her hippos were sensitive. The "blue bra" was actually a tank top of mine, so we temporized by putting a toddler size tank top on her and calling it a bra.

Why is this so important? Well, she was on her way to pre-school, and I'm sure the fact that she's wearing a bra on her hippos will come out at some point during the day.

All the work I've done, undone by a cute two year old!