Thursday, April 12, 2012

'You two make babies?' ... Ummm ...

I should know better than to joke with Matthew around. But sometimes I can't help myself ... and look where it leads me.

At dinner tonight, Colin was having another of his screaming bouts, where he wants something, and to get our attention, he shrieks until we can't ignore him any longer. This time, he was screaming that he wanted more milk. We were able to figure that out because he was slamming his empty milk cup on the table.

As we slowed him down and reminded him to use sign language, he cooperated somewhat. He signed: "more" and "please." He skipped the "milk" sign, but we let it slide.

Matthew delights in pointing out absolutely everything in the world around him, so he made it known that Colin skipped "milk." "How do we know what he wants more of?" Matthew asked. "He only said 'more please.'

"Maybe he wants more brothers," I said. This is the conversation that followed:

Jenn: "Well, that's not going to happen."
Matthew: "Why?"
Jenn: "Because this is it. This is the whole Pickering family. There won't be any more of you."
Matthew: "How do you know?"
Me: "Because we decided not to have any more children."
Matthew: "You two don't make babies."
Me: "Yes, we do."
Matthew: "How?" ...
... [painful silence] ...
Me: "... Um ... We ... Ummm ... "

Then I just gave up. I laughed and looked at Jenn. She was laughing at me. She offered a vain attempt at an explanation, something having to do with God blessing us with children and we deciding we didn't want any more, but she couldn't get through it. She started laughing, too. Matthew stumped us again. The question was never truly answered. We moved on to critiquing Josh's table manners.

I gotta go now. I need to find that parent instruction manual; the one that tells you how to handle those types of questions from a child like our 5-year-old.

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