Magic Belly Buttons

In the past six months my older son has asked me on several occasions from where on my body his baby brother came out.  Usually this question would come up at the dinner table.  My husband and I have always been comfortable using the proper names for body parts to normalize the conversation and so our son is quite familiar with the word penis.  We occasionally need to remind him that it is a "bathroom word" and not necessarily something we need to discuss over dinner.  He was also taught the word vagina but it comes up much less frequently in our conversations.  I think one of the few times I can recall him saying the word was immediately after he learned it and then asked to see mine (the answer was no).  Sometimes it's a struggle to maintain my composure and pretend that these innocent questions don't also make for really awkward conversation.

My husband and I never did discuss how we would talk to our son about birth though.  So when he asked me for the first time where the baby had come out, I panicked and made a joke saying the baby magically passed through my belly button.  Then I swiftly changed topics.  I could tell that my son didn't really believe me, and that was fine because I didn't actually want him to think babies are born from belly buttons.  I was just buying some time.  But then the question was posed to me another two or three times weeks later and each time I just said it was from my belly button.  

Last week while my son and I were building a pirate ship Ninja Turtle fortress using LEGO and a whole lot of imagination I decided it was time to have the conversation.  I didn't want my previous avoidance of the topic to create a huge mystery in my son's head, or suggest to him that I wouldn't be someone he could always come to with his curiosity.  So the conversation went something like this:

Me:  "So remember how you asked Mummy about where the baby came out from?"

Son: "Yah?" [searching through a pile of LEGO]

Me: "Well boys and girls have different body parts, right?"

Son: [nod without looking up from his LEGO]

Me:  "What is the name for a boy's private part?"

Son: "Penis."  [big grin, still not looking up]

Me: "And what is it for a girl?"

Son: [Shrug, grins awkwardly] "I don't remember."

Me: "Vagina, remember?"

Son: "Hee hee, buh-gi-na" [he chuckles, turning it into a joke]

Me: "No, how do you say it properly?"

Son: "Vagina."

Me: "Ok, well that's where the baby came out.  Not from my belly button.  That was just a joke..."

Son: [Interrupting, eyes wide open] "Babies come out of your penis?!?!" [forefinger and thumb about an inch apart, hovering over pants]

I imagined my son picturing a marble-sized baby coming out of my penis and thought, well that went about as well as I had hoped.