Thoughts on Babies

Today, out of the blue during spelling, one of my little girls said, "Mrs. Wilson, will you ever have babies?"

I was caught off guard, and I answered, "Someday."

Then another kid spouted off, "When you do, will you bring them to school?"

"Sure," I answered.

"Why can't you have a baby now, so we can see him?" kid number one joins in again.

"Well, I have to wait until Seth gives me permission."

"Why?"

This is where the side conversations start. Here are some examples of "why" I have to wait for Seth's permission before having babies (and other unrelated stories) - according to first graders:

1. "She has to ask him if she can buy one."

2. "Seth is a doctor" (I swear I've never told them this) "and he doesn't want his baby to get sick from all the germs at school."

3. "He might want to come to school too if the baby is there."

4. "I don't think teachers have babies, do they?"

5. "My music teacher had a baby."

Sigh.

This relates well to the next humiliating thing that happened. With Easter being a "religious" holiday, and having a few Jewish kids in my class, I tried to avoid the whole Easter bunny thing as much as possible while still having some fun with the spring season. I decided to do a unit on eggs instead. We made a chart about what we knew about eggs, what we wanted to learn about eggs, and after the unit, we'll finish it by writing what we learned. Today we watched a Reading Rainbow movie about the book Chickens Aren't the Only Ones. The movie was great, and I paused it several times for kids to hold up a card and tell a fact they learned or a question they wanted clarified. The video showed a chick hatching from an egg, and a logger head turtle laying eggs. The kids were disgusted by the chick before he dried out, and even more appalled at seeing the close up of the turtle laying her eggs.

Afterward, the kids had to tell me a fact or ask a question to get ready for lunch. One that sticks in my mind: "Why in the world would a turtle want to poop fifty eggs out of it's butt?!?"

I wanted to clarify that it wasn't pooping, so I said, "It doesn't poop the egg, and it doesn't come out of it's butt." Ha. There, I fixed that one. Now we won't have to be embarrassed about poop.

"Then where does it come out of?"

Oh, no. This is far worse.