Where Babies Come From

I have two younger sisters born seventeen months apart.  I was about eight when Connie came along.  Mother had told us she was expecting, but since I wasn’t interested in babies, I quickly put it out of my mind, not think thinking much more about it.  I even socked one of my cousins for saying my mother was pregnant.  I thought it was an insult like “trashy” or “low class.”  I was shamed to no end when my aunt confirmed that my mother was indeed “pregnant” and the word meant “expecting.”  Not only was Mother “pregnant!” She’d put me in a position to humiliate myself.

I found Connie very cute and entertaining once she got old enough to play.  Always happy to play with her, I’d forsake her as soon as she cried or needed a diaper.  Phyllis was a “little mother” and could care for Connie as well as Mother.  When Connie was a year old, Mother and Daddy announced a second baby was en route.  By now, I’d picked up a little misinformation and knew baby production involved the two of them.  They’d “done it” though what “it” involved was very foggy.  They’d alway said if I had any questions, come to them, so one day when Mother had her friends over for coffee,  I asked if they’d had to do “it” more than five times to get five children.  This clearly wasn’t the type question she meant.  I guess questions about Sunday School were more to her taste.  She invited me to mind my own business and not ask any more questions.