h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Part of bringing up kids is suffering accute embarrassment! When my little girl was toilet training some people were quite shocked at the times and places we allowed her "potty talk". But kids have no idea what is appropriate and what isn't. We wnated her to be confident about using the toilet, and to know it was a natural thing which everyone did, and if that meant asking everyone about it, well I'd rather she did that than get told off for speaking inappropriately and start thinking using the toilet was "dirty" and getting put off before she'd even started. This meant coping with questions like "Is daddy doing a big brown poo now?" in crowded restaurants!

My daughter asked about where babies came from at quite an early age, and I described it simply using pencil and paper to "illustrate" some points. She seemed to take it all in and the subject was dropped.

Two days later my 8-month pregnant sister-in-law and her husband came for Sunday tea, and as the meal progressed my daughter asked if she could have a third cake. I told her that two was quite enough and my brother-in-law said: "Oh, no, you'll get fat like your Aunty Jean".

To which my daughter asked permission to leave the table, and shortly returned with pencil and paper saying, "No, no, Uncle John, Aunty Jean's not fat because she ate too many cakes - let me show you how it really happened..." and proceeded to reproduce more or less word-for-word and picture for picture what I had told her two days ago.

Hello, Disorganised one, what you doing up at this time of night?

Glad you're back and safe.

UG

Hello, Disorganised one, what you doing up at this time of night?

Glad you're back and safe.

UG

Oops!