Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Explaining Pregnancy to a Toddler - Take 1

While I was getting Sam ready for his nap today, he kept jumping at my mid-section saying, "I want go in your tummy." Of course, I kept telling him he was too big to go in my tummy.

Lots of times, I scratch his back before he goes to sleep. To get this started, he'll lay on his back, pull up his shirt so his stomach is showing, and ask me to scratch his back. So later, while we were snuggling, I asked him if he thought the baby was a boy or a girl. He said, "gurl." Then he pulled my shirt up and said, "I scratch her tummy," (meaning he was scratching the baby's tummy). How precious is that?

Here's how my feeble attempt at trying to explain why he can't scratch the baby's tummy went.
Me: "Buddy, that's so sweet but you can't scratch her tummy because she's INSIDE of my tummy."
Sam: "Where?"
Me: "In my tummy, on the inside."
Sam: "Let me see."
Me: "Hmm, you know the chicken nuggets you ate at lunch? They're inside your tummy. Can you touch them?"
Sam: opens mouth and sticks fingers in, then starts to giggle
Me: "See? You can't touch them because they're inside."

After that, there was a lot of belly pushing and belly button poking (which can be quite painful).

Poor kid. I probably made it even more confusing. Maybe we should stick with the story that babies come from eating a really big meal....

7 comments:

Laura said...

Awww, sweet. Maybe you could put something in a suitcase as an example... that way he won't think you ate his little sister. ;)

julie said...

so funny! eric's niece, who his sister adopted from china, is adorable and i was the first pregnant woman she was ever able to ask questions to. she was 3 last year.

she asked me "where you kids at?" and i said "we have one, but he's still in my belly"... she thought long and hard about this and asked so many questions throughout the weekend "does he eat? does he wear clothes? does he cry?" etc.
my favorite: "your baby is in your belly, right?" "yes, evie"

long pause... disturbed face: "did you eat him?"

Angela V said...

zach is in to a sister wanting stage. my sister in law is pregnant and i told him how cara was going to have a little brother or sister and then that's when the pressure started..."mommy, i wanna seester" and he says "daddy, i want the pone so i wanna talk to my seester" and carries on convos with this imaginary sister. when i told him mommy has to grow his "Seester" in her belly one day, he turned to me and said "NO! I want seester noooooooooow!" and he'll pick out his toys and tell me "dis ones for my seester" i can only imagine whats going to happen when the next one comes along!

Greta said...

Angela - that's sweet of Zach. Whenever we ask Sam if he thinks this is a boy or girl, and he responds girl, he follows it up with, "she not play with my toys." Clearly, we're really making progress in the sharing department.

Laura said...

Love it that Sam assumes only brothers will want to play with his toys!

Greta said...

Oh no, he means he doesn't want her to play with his toys...

Laura said...

Only boys can? Or just no one in general?