AJ woke from his afternoon nap groggy and confused. �Mommy, we forgot to go to the Park Zoo,� he said, alarmed. �No, we weren�t going to go to the Park Zoo today.� He looked tearful. This boy is desperate for a trip to the zoo. But today, wasn�t looking like a good day for the folks at the Park Zoo. I�ll admit that I lied and told him that the zoo was closed. Sometimes it�s easier to avoid the truth.

I�ve been doing that a lot with AJ lately. He�s been asking a lot of questions about babies and body parts and I have not had good answers for him. I�m just not sure how to explain it all, how much information he really wants to here. His questions have been coming thick and fast � I�ve actually not even been given much time to answer: �Mommy, how do the babies get in the mommy�s tummy? How do they get out? Do they climb up the esophagus? Whose tummy were you in when you were a baby? Was it Daddy�s tummy?� This boy needs answers. And so far, they ain�t coming from me.

I�m definitely shirking my parental duty. I never expected I�d be so squeamish about the subject of sex. It�s not something I�m generally averse to discussing. But somehow, the protective mother gene kicks in at times to protect him from, what, exactly? Knowledge? Life? These are, after all, perfectly reasonable questions. Although I admit that I�m slightly worried about what might happen when he acquires the information he seeks � he has a tendency to repeat such things to others as frequently as possible until he has full command of his subject. This could make for an interesting year-end parent-teacher conference. I�m going to have to sit down and figure out what to tell a four year old about the subject of babies and mommies and I�m pretty damn sure the stork and cabbage patch stories are not going to fly with this kid.

And sooner or later he�s going to figure it out for himself. Today we were playing The Shape Game, inspired by this book of the same name. One person draws a shape and then passes it to another person to turn it into a picture. AJ first drew a lopsided circle, which I turned into a sleeping cat with its nose tucked under its tail. Then I drew a crooked square that AJ turned into the state of New Mexico (and it looked like it, too). The AJ drew a funny squiggly shape that I turned into a hen. Since she was a slightly Dadaist hen, I drew a nest with three eggs in it next to her, to make it clear what she was intended to be. AJ looked at the nest and picked up his pencil. �Is it okay if I draw some cracks in the eggs? That way the baby chicks can get out.� And he did.

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