Too Much Information

Do you ever hear something come out of your mouth and you immediately think, "Why did I just say that?"

A few nights ago I was finishing Peter's bedtime routine. He and Cooper share a room and, because they keep each other awake when we send them to bed at the same time, he has to wait for Cooper to fall asleep every night before he can climb into bed. This means that he's always the last kid awake.

On this night I had just finished singing his two songs to him. I told him that I'd have to wait a minute to get up because I was having a contraction (I've been having them for the past twenty weeks, they've just kicked up in intensity and repetition during the last few weeks) and wanted it to finish first. This is what followed.

Peter: What's a contraction?

Me: It's some of my muscles tightening a lot.

Peter: Why?

Me: That's how my body gets ready to help the baby be born.

Peter: So you had them with all of us?

Me: Yup.

Peter: Wow, so you've had four contractions.

Me: (quickly realizing that in his mind four children must equal four contractions) No, I've had way more than that.

Peter: What does it feel like?

Me: Basically like you're dying.

And that folks, was the moment. His eyes got kind of big and he paused, which is unusual for Peter. I tried to fix it, but I'm not sure I succeeded. I told him that it wasn't actually dying, just really painful. Then I stopped explaining and changed the subject.

Either I've curtailed his questions about this topic, or he's just ruminating on what I've said and formulating a whole new set of questions. It's probably the latter.