“Mommy, I don’t even know where I come from.”

“You don’t know where you came from? You came from me. And your daddy.”

“I know, mom, but I don’t know where from you I came from.”

Silence as he ponders this for a moment. We’re on our way home to my house, after I have picked him up from his dad’s for our usual Wednesday evening together.

After considering for a while, he says, “Did you poop me out, Mom?”

Here’s where I choke on my coffee.

“Ah. Um. No, son, I didn’t poop you out. Where did you hear that?”

“My sister said that one time, she said you pooped me out.”

“Um, no. You were in my tummy, you came from in my tummy.” I’m thinking, five is waaaaaayyyyy too young to have the official birds and bees conversation. So although I dislike lying to my son, I’m thinking, there’s a time and a place for everything, and now is neither the time nor the place to explain how, exactly, he exited my body.

I pat my stomach to demonstrate. He looks at my stomach, then looks at me, somewhat skeptically, okay, but, you know, he’s a smart kid, and I’m pretty sure he knows I’m feeding him a line of bullshit, he’s just not quite sure which part.

“Well did you puke me out, then? Because when my tummy doesn’t feel good, I puke. So did you puke me out?”

Sigh.

“No, son, you were in my tummy and then you came out of my tummy when it was time to be born.” Still technically true. Trying to stick as close to the facts as possible.

He heaves a great sigh. “I’m so confused.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m so confused, I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I don’t know what part of your body I came out of your tummy from.”

Erg. Someone at school’s been having talks with my son, I’m thinking.

“Well, son, it’s like I said. You got started in my tummy, and then you grew there for nine months, and then when it was time to be born, you came out of my tummy.”

He ponders this in silence for a while. I’m sweating bullets because honestly, I don’t like feeding kids bullshit. When my grandpa died, he wanted to know what happened, and someone from his school was telling him some bullshit about how grandpa was running through meadows and frolicking with bunny rabbits or some crap like that. We had a very deep conversation later that when people get old, and sick, they die. Sometimes they might go to heaven, but when it’s time for them to die, it’s what they do.

So I’m picturing having to describe something similar to him about where babies come from. Picturing the conversations he would have at school the next day…”Did you know I came from my mommy’s private parts?”

Joy.

“So mommy if I was in your tummy then when I was born, did I come out of your belly button?”

I can smell defeat when it’s stinking like a three day old corpse. I know when to cave.

“Yes, honey. When it was time for you to be born, they pressed on my tummy and you popped right out of my belly button. It was the wierdest thing ever.”

Silence.

“Okay. So what’s for dinner?”

Huge sigh of relief.