The Question

Jacob, never short on questions, recently took it to the next level, perhaps, THE level. I could hear Jennifer and him discussing our humanity, life, death, etc which isn’t a terribly unusual conversation these days (the oldest two are fascinated by the thought of Heaven and our origins as humans). After drifting out of the room, Jennifer called me back simply stating as I returned, “Jacob wants to know how babies are made”. In the past, the culminating question was typically, “where do babies come from?” which allowed the generic (and easy) answer of, “from mommy’s belly”. But, this was a big-league question deserving a big-league answer, and I did what most warm-blood males would do…I ignored it. Legitimately, I can recall these six thoughts racing through my mind during the 2 seconds following Jennifer’s statement:

1) “oh c$%p”
2) “Jennifer, change the subject”
3) “maybe, he’ll forget that the he asked”
4) “Have I told him about last night’s Bulls game yet?”
5) “Where’s that James Dobson book?”
6) “Pray…now”

I honestly don’t remember what happened next. I think I turned and walked out of the room hoping that flat out ignoring the question might allow it to go away. In that moment, I would have gladly gone through cars 1-99 on the NASCAR circuit with Jacob for the 147th time. For a couple years now, it’s been fun to laugh about the fact that Jensen thinks babies come out of their mommy’s bottoms and that newborns are fed from arm pits. However, it appears that the honeymoon of the question and answer period is now over. We (I) need to be prepared to answer the questions. I know one thing…even my most miss-guided answer will be far better than the answer that is given on the playground, so I better learn to not ignore!