Our little girl is growing up . . .

Meredith is 3 years old. She is becoming more independent and more capable every day. Her brain is also developing at almost terrifying rates. I think that the best indication of her ever developing intellect is the change in her questions. You know that typical Why? question that every growing child asks - well, while Meredith still asks a great deals of why questions, she is starting to ask questions during the day that are a great deal more complex and require a great deal of effort in our part to answer or to try to evade. The last few weeks led to two interesting and greatly difficult questions that I would like to share with you.

Question #1: For almost 9 months Meredith was aware that there was a baby in Mommy's tummy. Then Wyatt came home and the baby was no longer in Mommy's tummy. So, the other day while we were having a family breakfast - pretty much out of no where Meredith turns to us and asks - "How did the baby get in your tummy Mama?"

Well let me tell you. That was not a question I was prepared to answer. I looked at Ryan and he looked at me and I don't think that either one of us knew how to proceed. My next reaction was to ask Meredith is I could answer her question later, which she promptly answered with a resounding NO! Then Daddy stepped in with a distracting comment and the question was averted for another day.

You know I have a degree in Health Science Education - part of my eduction focused on the education of Human Sexuality. I thought I was prepared to answer this question when Meredith was 7 or 8, maybe even 5 or 6 - but I was not prepared to answer this question to a 3 year old. WHAT? She is 3 - I am still working on teaching her the proper anatomical terms for our body parts and let me tell you the arrival of Wyatt has greatly complicated that endeavor, but conception - I am going to have to do some serious research on this, so next time it comes up I can tackle it head on.

Question #2: I don't know - can't remember what we were watching on TV. But we were having some family TV time, so it was probably something rated PG or less. And somebody said something about God. Meredith, again, turns to us and asks, "What is a God?" Well, I was stumped how to you explain God to a 3 year old in terms that she was understand, esp. when you are 31 and don't always know how to answer that question to yourself.

Our little girl is growing up. I am proud. I am excited. I am terrified. And I have heart palpitations when I think about that fact that we will have to do it all again with a boy.

Love Every Day.