talking to kids...

One of the joys of living in community is having kids around all the time.  Well, this can be a joy as well as a frustration, especially when the kids aren't yours.  Yesterday I was talking to one of our neighbours and she was commenting on my growing baby bump.  Her kids were nearby and are quite enthralled with the fact that I'm having a baby.  They each had a comment/advice for me:

6 year old "E", a boy, was quick to let me know that my belly is not big enough.  there was no "you're not big enough yet" nor any indication of him understanding the idea of a belly in progress.  i was just simply not big enough to have a baby inside.  Well, I assured him that this was only the beginning of the belly and that I would get much, much bigger before too long.

Then 4 year old "S", a girl, piped up with some advice that I should go to the hospital to get the baby out.  Like, right now.  I laughed and said that it would still be a long time before I went to the hospital to get the baby out because the baby wasn't ready to come out yet.  She must have thought I was really quite ready to get this "thing" out of me already!  How helpful of her to let me know where I would need to go once I am ready to get this baby out!

We also heard, second-hand, about a conversation that some of our other court neighbours had with these particular kids.  It came up that Niki was having a baby and they were all in agreement about that fact.  Then our neighbour asked, "Well what about Nathan?  Isn't he having a baby too?"  I believe it was the six-year-old who said, "No, Nathan's not having a baby.  Boys just give the sperm!"  Wow.  I think there are some things that will stay mysteries to our kids until they are a bit older than 4 or 6!