Where do Babies come from?

It's amazing how this question tickles the imagination of small kids. When my daughter was 4-5 year old, she was completely fascinated by this thought of where she came from. Once she was browsing through a photo album and came across a picture of mine in Goa, when I was expecting her. She asked me where she was at that time. I told her 'You were in my stomach'. She came across another older picture and asked me 'Was I in your stomach at this time also?". I told her "No". A little while later, she came up to me and asked me very thoughtfully "When I was not in your stomach, where was I". I told her "You were in mind". She was satisfied with this answer.

Fascination with babies was not restricted to her innocent questions, but it was very much a part of her play. My mother-in-law, who was her regular playmate, once came out of the toy room laughing to herself and announced 'Another baby born". In my daughter's imaginative play with her dolls, a baby was getting born every 10 minutes.

Now, it is the turn of my 4 year old son. In good humor, once my husband told him that he came out of papa's tummy while his sister came out of mummy's tummy. My son seems to have taken it seriously. The other day he was telling me that when he grows up, a baby boy will come out of his tummy. He clarified to me that when his didi grows up, a baby girl will come out of her tummy.

Yesterday, he was trying his hand at drawing something in his sketchbook. We had a short conversation.
Me - What are you drawing?
Him - A dinosaur
Me - Let me see. Now what have you drawn in his body?
Him - O this! This is his egg
Me - O really! What will happen to this egg?
Him (Looking at me with surprise at my ignorance) - The egg will come out of his body. Then he will stand on the egg. The egg will break.
Me - And then?
Him - A baby dinosaur will come out

I must say I quite enjoyed his imagination of the dinosaur standing on the egg to break it so that the baby dinosaur could come out.