Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Interesting Conversation

We are members of the Cincinnati Zoo. Over the weekend we received their "Wildlife Explorer" publication through the mail. The main story involved a pregnant Indian Rhinoceros named Nikki.

Harper and I were looking at the rhino pictures, and I told her that there was a baby in the rhino's tummy. We also looked at the ultrasound photo, but try explaining that to a two-year-old. The pregnant rhinoceros discussion led to a rather hilarious question and answer session.

We talked about the baby in the rhino's tummy and Harper asked, "Why did it eat a baby?!"

I explained that the rhino didn't eat a baby, but was growing the baby in her tummy, and when the baby was ready it would be born and there would be a baby rhinoceros.

Harper thought for a few moments and asked, "Where does the baby come out? From the mouth?"

I explained that no, the baby doesn't come out of the mouth, and made a slightly vague reference to the general area from which the baby would appear.

Harper thought for a few more moments and asked, "Does it come out in the toilet?"


After some stifled laughter, I told her that an animal doctor would probably be there to help with the baby and that it would not be born in the toilet. I figured we could wait for another day to discuss the fact that rhinos don't exactly make use of toilets anyway.

(Photos, totally unrelated to written content, courtesy of Mugga, from her late July visit.)

4 comments:

Jill said...

a ha ha a ha ha a ha ha thank god i dont have kids yet. i think i would have laughed my butt off trying to come up with accurate words that were clean enough.

Mommy Daisy said...

Oh boy, the questions. That's not going to happen for a long time in my house. LA LA LA LA! Shut up, it won't. LA LA LA!

Erin said...

Oh man. That's FUNNY. Nice job handling some of life's most dreaded questions.

Giselle said...

I think I'm going to have to mail a book of human anatomy to Miss Harper. Tails on boys and pooping out babies. Yikes! She could end up like one of the girls I had in 5th grade who thought she only had one hole down there and was quite concerned when our class had "the talk" about tampons. How would she pee? I'm just kidding of course. A 2 year old not knowing life's more complicated facts is totally normal...and quite funny. A 5th grader not knowing her own anatomy...not normal or funny.

Anyhoo, what cute stories to keep for her! I'm sure she'll find them embarrassing...which will be very satisfying for you when you whip them out!