"how did you get a baby inside your belly Mommy?"

With all of the excitement surrounding the news of our second baby, it was inevitable that there would be questions from our almost four year old as to how exactly this miracle occurred.  Since I've become a parent I have been worried about protecting our precious baby boy from the evils of the world around him- specifically girls.  I do often think about the day when we will have to have the talk him and I worry about the pressure he will some day face when it comes to "it".

But lets slow down here a bit, the child is barely four years old and he didn't necessarily ask about "it" he just wanted to know how the baby got inside my belly.  When he first asked I sort of ignored it and said it just happened.  I knew that this answer was not good enough and would not satisfy his ever increasing curiosity so I had to come up with something to tell him.

I rehearsed it in my head...

"Well son, one night your Daddy and I..."

TMI.

"When two people are in love they... " 

WRONG.

"Son, babies come when a Mommy and Daddy..."

NO.

Finally, it hit me:  I would tell him that the stork was bringing us a baby.  Well that was not the right answer.  Soon there were questions like "if the stork brings the baby why will your belly get so big?"  "why do you have to go to the hospital if the stork carries the baby in his mouth and drops him off?" I had to revisit this stork topic and this is what I came up with... 

Mommy and Daddy decided that we loved you so much that we wanted another baby just like you.  We called the stork and he brought us a seed.  I swallowed the seed one night and it is beginning to grow.  When the baby has grown big enough I will go to the hospital and a doctor will remove the baby from my belly.

This answer seemed to satisfy his curiosity and we really haven't revisited the subject since then.  No, it is not exactly what I wanted to tell him but how do you explain the miracle of life to an innocent child?  He has plenty of time to grow and sooner than later he will be experiencing and learning all about adulthood.  I want him to be able to remain the sweet, innocent child he is.  Someday he will loose that innocence and I'd like to prolong that for as long as I can....