Difficult Questions

My son has reached the stage where he's realised certain questions are embarrassing to his parents - ***warning this posts contains toilet humour and references to genitalia!**

A friend of mine is a foster carer and she once explained that they are trained that difficult questions are most often asked in the car where children don't have to make eye contact with you. This hasn't been our experience - most are asked in the bath or at the dinner table.

We started with talk of how he wanted a baby sister for his 4th birthday - as 2 of his friends had baby sisters and being the only child at nursery who is an only child he is feeling left out.

At the dinner table he announced - mummy where did you get me from? (my husband was heard chuckling as he ran from the room). I tried to be as honest as possible but I think (hoped?) that the answer was (it was so traumatic I blanked it out) something along the lines of a man and a woman being in love and wanting to share it with a child and having a special cuddle rather than the gooseberry bush flannel I was fed with. However he still seems to be under the impression that we can just go to the shop and buy one - and boy were we in trouble when one didn't appear for his birthday.

The next difficult question concerned where poo-poo came from. Again I launched into a description of how we eat food and the body uses it for energy and anything that is left over is ... well ... poo poo. I'm not sure why I can't just come out with the lines that I was fed - I seem to be unable to say anything but the truth -with the least description as possible (I know I've made a rod for my own back as he's already asked several questions about the detail which I have absolutely no clue of the answer!). I have come to regret this and I have, on at least 4 separate occasions, heard him repeat this information to others - usually complete strangers in a cafe or on a bus.

Then the part a boys body that they are always fascinated with regularly comes up in conversation. He's already quizzed his dad about it but then asked me too. His main concern was my assertion that I didn't have one.

Then his recent question - delivered for full effect just as I was leaving him at grandad's (who had a tough time coping with me breastfeeding let alone toilet questions) - if I didn't have one did the wee wee come out of my bottom? Bless him, my dad did try to explain but it got all confused so my son now has the conviction that 'mummy's telling fibs, she has one really ...'

On the plus side he used the word 'consistently' when talking about why our DVD player is giving up the ghost - which I thought was pretty good for a 4 year old, hmm, wonder if he can spell it.