Name:
Location: Palm Beach County, Florida, United States

Recently have been told I look like Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island. I hadn't heard that in years, but that is a good place to start as to what I look like, although she had a better bod. I have three boys and have been married for 13 years. Born of a Navy family, in Hawaii, one Mom, one Dad, one sister and one brother. The eldest of three children. BS in Applied Mathematics. Consider Pensacola my home town although I moved every 2-3 years of my life growing up. Currently work in the aerospace industry in an engineering position while being a Mom. Of Celtic heritage and very proud of it.

Thursday, August 05, 2004

20 Billion Questions and Not Many Answers, Part II

Conversations about birth and sex always happen while I’m driving, typically on I-95, going 70MPH. But for the Grace of God we have yet to crash, although the instinct of pulling the wheel while I clutch my chest is great. So far I haven’t crashed us in a ditch yet.

As I’ve said in the past, answering questions from my boys is like dodging rapid gunfire. It’s hit or miss, but mostly I take the hits.

I hear from the backseat, Son#3 says, “So they just cut her open to get a baby out?”
Son#2, “No, not always. Just sometimes,”
Son#3, “Well how do they do it the other times?”
My ears have perked up because 1) I need to be prepared to answer the barrage of questions whenever this topic comes up and 2) I’m wondering what in the hell Son#2 is going to say. But Son#2, knowing the answer, deftly and swiftly hits the question to my court..

As a parent, you realize the answers to any questions need to be brief and to the point. No extra information. Just the Facts M’am. Unfortunately, sometimes the questions get worse and worse and next thing you know, you’re stuck in a conversation you can’t get yourself out of and wondering how in the hell you got there.

The questions are coming in quick succession now and they are getting more involved. Does it hurt? Did they put you to sleep? How did it go when I was born? And on and on. I did the best I could. I swear I did. Sticking to the facts, but I knew I may have said something that was misunderstood when at the close of the conversation, I heard Son#3 say, “OK, so my body came out, but my head stayed in.” No clue, where that came from as he was not breech and I did not go into that much detail about anything. I only said he had a big head. I swear. Something must’ve happened during data processing.

Now I’m getting question after question about how they feed, sleep, and breathe in utero. Son#3, “So can a baby feel all your bones when they’re in there?” Well, geez, I had never thought of that, so I told him no, although I swear they almost broke a rib from the inside out once.
Son#3 again, “So when they want to go to sleep, do they make a big bed of bones and go to sleep?” Wha? We appear to have some major anatomy issues… like our bones unhinge at the whim of a sleepy fetus.

On the way home, the questions resumed. I do not jest when I say, I can easily get hammered with 100 questions in just a matter of minutes. Now however, the questions start involving multiple births and Son#3 is really really mad that I made him born last, he wanted to be first or second, and why couldn’t they all just be born at the same time. I informed then that it does happen, but typically people and big animals don’t have litters, dogs and cats do. And then some how… we ended up at Siamese twins and how you separate them and what happens if they are joined at the head and what happens if you want to separate them and they share a leg… and what happens….

And I pulled up in the driveway, and my brain was so damn tired, and all I want to do now is crawl in bed and sleep.

7 Comments:

Blogger littlejoe said...

One of the reasons I am almost certain I cannot be a parent. I know I will give them f*ed up answers on purpose, just to see the look on their mothers/teachers/grandparents face.

12:35 AM  
Blogger Contagion said...

Well I'm a parent of two, I never said I was a good parent, because I do what Little Joe stated.

Like the time I told the boy gravity isn't want holds us to earth. Air preasure holds us to earth. See gravity only keeps the astmosphere in place, but it's the weight of the atmosphere pushing down on us that keeps us here. That is why they are worried about the hole in the Ozone layer. See that is like the skin of a balloon and the air is slowly leaking out through it. once it gets so low, we will all start to fly away.

I'm a bad dad. But it was amusing. Very amusing.

And as for babies breaking bones, I dont know about that, but my youngest gave my wife external bruising with his kicking and punching. and once she swore he was going to break a rib. He kept pushing on it in the same spot like it was a spring board.

7:34 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I didn't know Harvey had any medical training!
Alex ;-)

9:17 AM  
Blogger Harvey said...

No medical training here.

I'm not a doctor, although I have been known to PLAY doctor ;-)

Anyway, for no particular reason, I think "unhinging my bones at the whim of a sleepy fetus" would make a cool tagline for a pregnancy blog :-P

6:10 PM  
Blogger Bou said...

Little Joe and Contagion officially remind me of the father from Calvin and Hobbes. Any fans of that comic strip will understand.

Harvey, LOL! You are right. That would be a fun tagline.

7:06 PM  
Blogger Harvey said...

Bou - [thinking about Calvin's dad for a minute]

Heh. You're right. That's the kind of BS he'd try to pass off :-)

1:05 PM  
Blogger Bou said...

And for some reason, I could see YOU trying to pull off that same BS, Harvey!

2:00 PM  

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