Feeling brave? Try this.

CARRIE: "Hey, Sam. Come here!"
SAM: "What?"

"I've got a question I wanted to ask you. Where do babies come from?"
"From their mommy's tummy."

"Okay, yeah, but how do they get in there?"
"They don't get in there! They grow in there!"

"Point taken. But...what were they before that? Where was Gabe before he was in me?"
"We weren't around then, any of us. Only the dinosaurs were."

"Uh...all right. I mean, after you were born, there was no baby in me, but then there was! How did that happen?"
"Babies grow from the food you eat, Mommy."

"Oh, so that's it. Could a baby grow in Daddy from the food he eats?"
"No! Daddies can't have babies! Only mommies!"

"Oh, I'm sorry; you're right. But how does the food turn into a baby? What makes it grow?"
"God makes the baby grow in a mommy. He made Gabe grow because he saw me, and saw that I was lonely and needed somebody to play with. So he put Gabe in you!"

"Okay. Now, how do daddies enter into it?"
"Through their mommies."

"Well, okay. But I mean, what do they do to help babies grow?"
"They make dinner."

"That's helpful."
"Yes."

"Oh, one more thing: how does God decide whether a baby should be a little boy or a little girl?"
"Mommy, I don't think you or I know the answer to that question."

"True, little man. True."

So, perhaps not ready for any new information about the birds and the bees (I didn't expect he would be), but he's very comfortable with what he knows and believes to be true. I ought to have asked him whether different types of food made for different types of babies, but he was starting to get irritated with me for asking "silly" questions, so I let him wander off. Sometimes, though, it's really fun to ask your kids about concepts, just to see what they've "figured out" all by themselves. We've told him that foods all have different "jobs" in keeping our bodies running - proteins, carbohydrates, etc. - but I didn't realize that he was drawing a connection between food and every last thing our bodies could do. Which gives me another thought:

"Sam, why do some people have red hair, and some people have brown hair, and some people have yellow?"
"Hmmm. I don't know!"

"I have red hair. How did that happen?"
"Maybe it's just because you're Mommy.

Fair enough. Just curious.

We've all been hit, with the exception of Eric, with the Wisconsin Death Virus the past couple of weeks. Last Tuesday, as I said, Sam was running a fever when I picked him up from school. It went up to 102 degrees and wobbled around there for a few days; I kept tabs on it and gave him Tylenol when he seemed most miserable, but otherwise, we let the fever do its dirty work. (We did have a brief mishap the following morning, when the fever "tricked" me by disappearing in the morning; Sam declared that he was feeling "really great," so we drove to Milwaukee to visit the Domes, where after an hour Sam suddenly relapsed into feverish ickiness and subsequently puked all over himself on the car ride home.)

He recovered after a few days, but on Saturday, I started running a high fever of my own. I was dizzy, nauseated, and exhausted, and then after a few days of that, I developed a horrendously sore throat and other flu-like symptoms. For the past three days, I've had no voice at all, in fact, which makes parenting a much trickier challenge; I tried using a party noisemaker to get their attentions when they weren't looking at me, but Gabe was terrified of the noise and cried when I used it. I've resorted to clapping and stomping my feet, which sometimes works and sometimes just makes me feel like a grade-A idiot.

Yesterday, Gabe, who had been tip-toeing around the idea of getting sick, finally burst into full fever, burning up with temperatures over 103 degrees, which firmly crossed my "let it be" comfort threshhold by virtue of heat and his younger age. So he's medicated, but his nose is still runny and he refuses to sleep through the worst spots like Sam did, leaving him staggering around the house like a whiny little zombie. "Nur-nurrrrrr...Nurrrrrr-nurrrrrrrrr..."

I need for us all to get better soon. This weekend is the Home Improvement Expo, and we had planned to attend to get ideas for what to do with the house next (and perhaps win some door prizes which could help along the way). Sunday is the church's Dessert Derby, and we already have our tickets, as well as Sam's ticket for the kids' activities. Besides all that, I met a potential friend at La Leche League, and I haven't been able to give her a follow-up call what with all the disease running around here; she called me yesterday, and my voice (or lack thereof) startled her when I answered the phone. I want to get together with her soon, but I'm not about to come anywhere near her tiny little baby with these germs swarming around my head. But I'm lonely!

I can't be optimistic, though, when I wake up in the morning and see not spring out my window, but thickly falling flakes of white which are covering everything I see. That's just cruelty on top of cruelty.

I'm trying to plan our Easter trip back east, too. We waited a bit long to be able to fly, sadly, but the train is still an option. It should be much more entertaining than last year, when Gabe was still immobile; at least Sam is much more accustomed to using toilets this time around, so he shouldn't flip out too much when he has to go.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing my folks again. It's been too long, and my mood really needs the lift this will provide. Plus, we'll get to see the extended family at Grandma's over Easter itself, which is always a blast, especially for Sam.

Oh, good grief; Easter. I haven't given it much thought yet, and I'll need to figure out what we're doing this year. I ought to knit collapsible Easter baskets for easy packing if this is going to become a regular thing.