A few years ago, we were visiting our granddaughter Ava. This was before her little sister, Juliette, was born. We were all sitting around together, laughing and talking, when out of the clear blue, Ava asked her father where she came from. All of us adults looked at each other as if to say, ‘uh-oh—is it already time for the talk?‘

But her wonderful dad, who was born in South Africa, sat her down and told her that he and her mother had decided that they wanted a baby very much. Ava looked a bit confused, and said “but how did I get here?”

Her dad said, “we went into the jungle in with a big cage. We filled it up with chocolate and butter [Note: Ava loves butter nearly as much as she loves chocolate]. Then we went back into the bushes to wait and watch.”

“All of a sudden, a little monkey ran right into the cage and started eating the butter and chocolate! So we closed the door quickly so that she wouldn’t get away, and we took her home, and that was you!”

Ava gave her father one of those ‘are you kidding me?’ looks. She said, “well, what happened to my tail?”

Her father replied, “We had to take it off because you can’t have a tail in school.” As you can imagine, we were all killing ourselves laughing, including Ava.

So if your kiddo asks you where babies come from, and you feel that you are not quite ready to haul out the charts and pointer, a young monkey in a cage full of butter and chocolate may work.