How did you. . . ?

In Iowa a couple weekends ago. I'm riding to Target with a sister and her daughters. Her 7 year old, Dax, has some questions for me.
"Where's Khubz, anyway?"

"She's with her mama. They wanted to stay at home and play together."

"Why didn't Aunt Scully get a baby?"

"She did, Dax. Khubz is both of our baby"--- I am cut off, and quickly.

"I know that, Aunt FFemme." She is rolling her eyes at me, both literally and with her tone. "I mean, why didn't she get a baby in her body?" Duh.

"Oh. Well, some women want to be mommies but don't want to have a baby in their body. Other women want to be mommies and they do want to have a baby inside of them. Then there are other women who don't want to be mommies at all. When you become an adult woman, you'll get to decide what you want to do with your body." Good answer, right? But of course, we know it's more complicated than that. There are women who want to be mommies but can't or want to carry children but can't or want to be daddies but are told they can't be that either. And what if she doesn't grow up to be a woman at all what if this whole conversation was actually with my nephew Dax but I didn't know it yet? And what if my nephew Dax grows up to be a lovely man and then decides he wants to be a mom? No more time to expound on the multitude of gender/family options. Here comes another question.

"But how did you get the man-stuff in you?"

I grimace. Eckhh. Man-stuff. Just what I have spent my adult life trying to avoid. "Well. . ." I hesitate.

"You mean the sperm? How did she get the sperm in her? A doctor helped her." Says my sister who is in that moment helping me.

"Yeah. The sperm." Dax clarifies. "Where did it come from?"

Okay, sperm. There's irony there, too. (Purchasing at exorbitant prices something for which there is no scarcity. Really. And never will be.) But it's certainly better than "man-stuff."

"Well, there are very generous people in the world who know that some families can't have children without help. And they are very kind and they give parts of their bodies so those families can have children. And we will always be very grateful that people like that exist and were so generous."

Off the mark again, Aunt FFemme. "Where did the doctor get it?" Dax is now speaking to me in simple sentences.

"A laboratory." Her mom rescues me again. "The doctor gets it from special laboratories."

"Oh." Her satisfaction is so fleeting. Immediately she moves on to the next question. "But how did they get it in you?"

"Yeah, how did they get it in you?" My sister asks. "A syringe?"

A syringe? Are you fucking kidding me? "No, no. It was a tube--" cut off again

"Oh, a tube." Says my sister

"A tube?" Dax echoes.

"Like a giant straw." My sister suggests.

"NOT like a straw." I insist. Eckhh! "A tube. They just put the sperm in one end and Aunt Scully shot it inside me and then the sperm and the egg joined and then Khubz started growing inside me."

"ohh. . ." but still not satisfied. "Can I get a Bratz doll for christmas?"

"No." her mother replied.

All was right in the world.