Education

"Mommy, why is the baby inside a vegetable?"

Monkey2 was studying a picture in our Bradley Method workbook. It was a line drawing of the uterine muscles, with the baby inside it.

It did look like the baby was inside a squash.

I explained that the baby was in the uterus, the strongest muscle in our bodies, inside the mommy. I pulled a sock out of the laundry basket and a plastic eggplant from the play kitchen. "Pretend this is the uterus," I said, holding up the sock, "and this is the baby," I held up the plastic eggplant. "This is the butt and this is the head," I added, pointing to each end of the prop.

Monkey2 laughed.

I put the eggplant inside the sock. "So the baby grows inside the uterus, inside mommy. When it is time for the baby to come out, the uterus squinches, called contractions," and I squished the sock little by little, wrinkling and stretching it, "until the baby comes out." And the eggplant baby slid out of the uterine sock.

Monkey2 was fascinated. When Monkey1 got home from school, Monkey2 showed her big sister the picture in the book and used the sock and eggplant to explain it. Big sister was not terribly interested. So Monkey2 showed Dad when he got home from work. He was impressed.