"Can you have a baby in your belly?"

Tonight, Luca and I were sitting on the floor together when she came over, put her hand on my belly, and said, "Can you have a baby in your belly?"

I looked at Darrick. He looked at me. "Did you tell her to say that?" I asked him. The look of abject terror at the thought of another baby gave me my answer.

And then I realized: sometimes Luca mixes up 'can' and 'do', and she very well may be confusing too much chocolate with a baby. So rather than broach the topic of how mommy and daddy are undecided about whether there will be another baby in our family one day, I deflected.

"Mommy used to have a baby in her belly, but not anymore. Remember when Rohan was in my belly?" She nodded and smiled. And then I realized that I've talked about his birth with so many people, but never with one of the most important people in my life: Luca. She was thisclose to being here for the birth, and had my mom not been at my house when I shot into labor at the speed of the Shinkansen she would have either napped through it or awoken just in time to hear me grunting out "Fuuuuuuuck" as I worked to push Rohan out. And yet, we'd just never talked to her about it.

So tonight, I took some time with Luca to talk about Rohan's birth. I kept it simple and asked her what she remembered, and to my surprise she remembered just enough. "Grandma took Luca to the park." she told me, which was true.

"That's right," I filled in the blanks for her, "We went to the store with Grandma, and then we ate lunch..."
"And I could watch the kids play?"
"Yes, the kids at the lunch place were playing. And we ate chicken and fruit."
"Yeah. Probly (probably is her new favorite word...it starts and ends almost every sentence it seems...) I ate Mama's chicken."
"You did, Luca. We had a good time. And then we came home. Do you remember?" She nods. "And you took a nap?"
"Probly Luca did."
"And then you woke up and Grandma took you to the park. And when she brought you home, Rohan wasn't in Mama's tummy anymore. He had been born."
"Probly I saw him in Dada's bed?" (Also true...she came home after we'd all gone upstairs and were snuggled in our bed, which she for some reason calls 'Dada's bed'.)
"Rohan was born right here," I pointed to the general area of the house where he'd been born.
"Oh. Yeah."

It was kind of cool to be able to tell Luca that story. Not that she completely got it...not this time. But I felt a little connection being able to tell her about the day her brother was born. It's such a great memory for me, and kind of cool that I can sit on the floor in my house and point to one spot and say, "He was born there." and gesture to another spot and say, "You met him right here." I look forward to telling Rohan that same story some day. And who knows? Maybe we'll decide to expand the family again someday and Luca will have the chance to be present for it, and then she can point to the place where baby is born and say, "Remember when you were born there? And when I met you here?"

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