Where is Lil Baby From? Answering Your Kid's Hardest Questions

I was wrestling a shopping cart with a violently shaking left wheel through the Target clearance aisle, trying to decide if I really needed another wire basket to hold the junk I haven't sorted since Christmas, when my four-year-old yelled out from the cart seat. "Mama, where is that Lil Baby guy from?!" The elderly lady standing next to me clutching a discounted seasonal throw pillow actually gasped out loud. She thought my feral child was loudly asking about human reproduction right there next to the marked-down vanilla candles. I started panic-sweating immediately. Do I do the talk right now? Do I try to explain a uterus next to an endcap of travel-sized shampoos? But then I realized his teenage cousin had been blasting Spotify in my minivan all weekend. He wasn't asking about infants or where babies actually originate from. He was asking about a grown man who raps.

The answer for parents who are completely out of the loop

I'm just gonna be real with you, I had to Google it in the parking lot while passing out lukewarm fruit snacks. If your kid is also parroting whatever they heard on the radio or from their cooler older cousins, Dominique Armani Jones—the rapper they're talking about—is from the Oakland City neighborhood in Southwest Atlanta, Georgia. He's got a couple of young sons of his own, which actually led me down a massive internet rabbit hole while my kids were strapped in their car seats screaming at each other.

Turns out, this guy is incredibly strict about keeping his kids' faces off the internet. He refuses to post them, refuses to make them part of his brand, and just lets them be normal kids in private. I've to say, I respect the absolute heck out of that. My mom, bless her heart, thinks I'm depriving the entire state of Texas by not posting a daily photo album of my kids' bathtub moments on Facebook for her church group to comment on. She literally calls me in tears because her friends from bingo can't see the baby's eczema flare-up online. It's exhausting trying to explain to a boomer that the internet is not a family scrapbook anymore.

But I've seen what happens when you put everything out there, and Jackson, my oldest, is my absolute cautionary tale for everything, but especially this. When he was a newborn, I posted way too much. Every milestone, every blowout, every tantrum went on my Instagram grid because I thought that was just what you were supposed to do to prove you were a good mom. Then I realized that a digital footprint is forever, and it's honestly creepy as all get out. You don't know who's saving those photos or looking at your kid's face. If you can just swallow your pride to tell your extended family to back away from the camera phone while you're trying to feed your crying kid without turning it into a massive screaming match, you'll save yourself a massive headache later.

My pediatrician mentioned at Jackson's three-year well-visit that all this public posting is really a huge privacy and safety risk. I kind of felt like a garbage mom for a hot minute, sitting there on that crinkly paper table while she explained it. But she just said that kids can't consent to having their embarrassing moments broadcast to hundreds of strangers. So now, we're practically a witness protection family with social media, and I don't regret it for a second.

When they genuinely ask about human reproduction

Of course, the universe wasn't going to let me off that easy. About three days after the Target incident, Jackson asked the actual question. We were eating spaghetti, and he just drops it: "Mom, where do the actual little babies come from?"

Let me tell you what not to do. Don't panic and lie. I panicked. I told him we got his little sister at H-E-B on double coupon day because she was on sale. He went straight to preschool the next morning and told his incredibly sweet teacher that I bought a baby in the produce section next to the jalapeños. I had to have a very awkward conversation at pickup that afternoon.

My grandma used to tell us the most ridiculous stories, and I swore I wouldn't do it, yet here I was. Here are the absolute worst lies the older generation used to feed us:

• The stork brought you in a blanket: This is a classic, but it's wildly confusing and just makes kids look at large birds with deep suspicion.
• We ordered you from a special catalog: Which just makes modern kids think Amazon Prime delivers human siblings in those blue and white vans.
• You just grew in my tummy from a seed: Which terrified me as a child because I thought if I accidentally swallowed a watermelon seed at the Fourth of July picnic, I was going to grow a baby in my stomach.

My pediatrician looked me dead in the eye at our next appointment and said if a toddler can learn the word for a tyrannosaurus, they can learn the word for a uterus. She told me to just use the actual medical anatomical terms. Apparently, if kids know the correct words for their body parts, they're way less likely to be taken advantage of. That's a terrifying thought to process while you're sleep-deprived, but I guess there's some solid science behind keeping it simple and honest. It feels incredibly weird saying the word "vagina" at the dinner table over a plate of cold pasta, but here we're. It's better than the H-E-B lie.

Distracting them with gear that honestly works

Let's talk about survival for a minute, because when you're completely exhausted from answering fifty deep life questions a day from a preschooler, you just want something that keeps the literal infant quiet so you can hear yourself think.

I've bought so much useless junk over the last five years, but the Organic Cotton Baby Blanket with Polar Bear Print is one of the few things I'll genuinely swear by. I winced when I first saw the price tag, I'm not going to lie to you. I'm usually a bargain bin shopper, and spending real money on a blanket felt ridiculous. But my middle kid was going through this horrific phase where she refused to sleep unless her face was mashed into my actual collarbone. I was desperate. I swapped this blanket in, and it's incredible. It's organic cotton, which gave me peace of mind since she literally chews on it in her sleep. It's insanely soft, holds up perfectly in the wash after she spills milk all over it, and the print is cute without being obnoxious. I seriously threw it over my own head yesterday while hiding in the pantry eating stale Goldfish crackers just to have a minute of peace.

On the flip side, we also have the Panda Teether Silicone Baby Chew Toy. It's fine. It's just okay. It's a silicone teether with a little bamboo design. Does it work? Yes. The baby chews on it when his gums are swollen and he's screaming his head off. But because I live in rural Texas with dogs that shed like it's an Olympic sport, the silicone attracts dog hair like a magnet if it drops on my living room rug. I spend half my day rinsing it off in the kitchen sink. But it's cheap enough that when we lose it in the bottom of the diaper bag under a crushed-up granola bar, I don't sit down and cry about it. It gets the job done.

If you're drowning in ugly plastic junk that takes six AA batteries and plays songs that make your ears bleed, maybe go browse the organic baby essentials on Kianao's site and save whatever shred of sanity you've left.

The weird advice about nursing and health

Since we're on the topic of where babies come from and keeping them alive, I've to talk about the absolute nonsense advice I got about feeding them. When I was pregnant with my third, my blood sugar was doing some weird things. My mom swore up and down that because I had some minor health issues, my breastmilk was basically going to be ruined or toxic.

She had read some outdated magazine article in a dentist's waiting room back in 1995 and treated it like gospel truth. I spent two weeks crying about it before I finally asked my doctor. He mumbled something about how breastfeeding honestly helps control a mother's blood sugar and might even lower the risk of diabetes later in life for both the mom and the baby. I guess the World Health Organization put out something confirming that, though I feel like every week they release a new study that contradicts the last one. Who honestly knows what's going on with hormones half the time? I sure don't. But it turns out my mom's waiting-room medical degree was completely wrong, which felt pretty great to point out at Thanksgiving.

Setting up a distraction zone on the floor

While you're having these deep, complicated conversations with your toddler about where humans originate or what state a famous rapper lives in, you desperately need somewhere safe to put the youngest kid down.

This is where the Nature Play Gym Set has saved my life. This wooden contraption is literally the only reason I get to drink my morning coffee while it's still relatively warm. It's wooden and minimalist, so it doesn't look like a primary-colored plastic spaceship crash-landed in the middle of my living room next to my pile of unpaid bills and spit-up rags. The little leaf shapes and neutral tones are cute. Is staring at wooden shapes making him a baby genius? Probably not, let's be real. But it keeps him safely occupied, and the wooden A-frame is surprisingly sturdy for when the seventy-pound dog accidentally bumps into it while chasing a fly.

The bottom line on answering hard questions

Parenting is mostly just getting caught off guard by questions you're entirely unqualified to answer. As for whether you should let your kids listen to rap music in the car, that's between you, your spouse, and Jesus. I'm just out here trying to keep everyone fed, relatively clean, and honest about basic anatomy. If you need to upgrade your nursery with stuff that won't make you want to pull your hair out, shop Kianao's sustainable baby gear right now before your kids start asking you where babies come from.

Questions you're probably panic-Googling at 2 AM

How do I explain reproduction to a toddler without losing my mind?

Just keep it painfully simple. You don't need to draw a diagram. I literally just say, "Babies grow in a special place inside a mom called a uterus." If they ask how it gets out, I just say the doctor helps the baby come out when they're big enough. Usually, they get bored after two sentences and go back to asking for a snack.

Should I post pictures of my newborn's face online?

I mean, you do you, but I highly think locking that stuff down. The internet is weird, and your kid might not want their naked bathtub pictures out there when they're trying to get a job in twenty years. Send a private group text to your grandma instead. She'll complain, but she'll live.

Is organic cotton really worth the extra money?

Look, I'm cheap, but yes. Babies suck on their blankets constantly. Regular cotton is heavily sprayed with gross chemicals, and I don't want my kid gnawing on pesticide fabric. Buy one good organic blanket instead of five cheap scratchy ones. You'll thank me when you're doing laundry at midnight.

How do I keep silicone teethers clean when I've pets?

You accept that your baby is going to ingest a tiny bit of dog hair. It builds character. But seriously, I just run our silicone teethers under hot water with a tiny drop of dish soap a few times a day. If it gets really gross, I throw it in the top rack of the dishwasher and pray it doesn't melt (it hasn't yet).

When should I start using a play gym with my baby?

Whenever you need to put them down to go to the bathroom alone. Honestly, my pediatrician said you can start laying them under it right away for visual tracking. They won't start batting at the toys until around three or four months, but the contrast gives them something to stare at while you desperately try to fold a load of laundry.