The Birds, the Bees, and Inifinity

So today Isabel was sick, which afforded some semi-rare alone time with her. I decided it would be a good time to discuss how babies are made. I am a bit embarrassed it has taken me so long to bring this up with her. Mostly it's because a long time ago, I tried to casually ask her what she thought the word “sex” meant and she clammed up. Not wanting to be ill prepared if it would be a big deal, I let it go. I kept thinking it might come up again naturally with some questions but it never did. Since I found myself alone with her as an ill and captive audience, the thought occurred to me that today was the day.

It ended up being no big deal and she was quite chillax about the whole conversation. As we got talking about Genes and DNA etc. she asked what DNA stood for, I couldn't think of the official name so I looked it up and realized as I could barely pronounce it why I didn't remember and why we've chosen the 3 letter acronym. She seemed to be curious about it so we read more on a kids website that tried to give a simple explanation. The more I read and tried to explain in simple terms the more it did not seem simple. After a bit she was giving me the courtesy nods and so I stopped. Then she thoughtfully asked. “I just don't understand how did everything begin? How did it start and how can it be made from nothing, because even nothing is sill something.” She's been asking these big universe questions from time to time, but not quite as intently as today. Not quite prepared to be discussing the philisophical tenents of Ex Nihilo with my 9 year old I tried to explain we don't really know exactly. I said we personally believe things weren't created out of nothing and gave some lame explanation about how time isn't necessarily always linear with a beginning and an end. But I said as far as how it all works exactly, no one knows, But many people try to figure it out. I think I ended with something like it's okay to be curious and try to figure these things out, but not to let it be worrisome when unable to find an answer. I remember as a kid having my brain hurt when I thought about the concept of inifinity.

This whole conversation led to even more questions and pretty soon I found myself just wishing we could go back to talking about the birds and the bees.