January 13, 2005 - Thursday
I sure got myself into this one...
"Hey, Harry, do you remember when Jeremy was born?" I asked in the car as we were driving home, curious to know how far his memory goes back these days.
"No."
"You don't remember anything about what we did?"
"What did we do?"
"Do you remember how you went to Gramma and Grampa's house and I took mommy to the hospital so Jeremy could be born?"
"Why did mommy have to go to the hospital?
"So, Jeremy could be born." I suppose if I had been thinking ahead I wouldn't have gone on and said, "do you remember how Jeremy used to be in mommy's belly and then he was born? And you came to the hospital to see him for the first time?"
"How did Jeremy get out of mommy's belly?"
I didn't answer immediately. Why didn't I see that coming?
"Did they have to cut mommy's belly open and take Jeremy out?" he pushed on.
"No," I thought about just saying 'yes' and ending it there, but I just couldn't. I could now see I was getting myself in trouble. "They do have to do that sometimes, but not with mommy." I kind of held my breath somehow hoping Harry might seize on the sometimes they cut mommies open part and go in a different direction, but he did not.
"So, how did Jeremy get out?"
"Through the birth canal," I answered after running through the choices I could come up with at that moment. And for a moment he said nothing and I thought maybe I'd done it with that... but no...
"Where is that?"
Oh, boy, I thought, but plodding ahead with science: "it's down near the legs." We're more discrete around the house these days, but I know Harry has seen both his mother and me unclothed before and he almost certainly remembers the basics. So, I decide to not be shy about it: "you know how you have a pee-pee and mommy doesn't?"
"Yeah."
"It's down there. It's that way with all girls." That seemed enough for Harry and that's where it ended.

January 15: Harry's mother asked me if I'd been talking to Harry about the "birth canal." Apparently, this morning Harry had grilled her with much the same line of questioning, apparently to either confirm or clarify the information he had gotten for me. Mommy realized it was a set-up when she paused too long before identifying where baby's come out by name.
"Daddy calls it the 'birth canal.'"
"Yes, that's right," she said.


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