Where Milk Comes From

My daughter has an insatiable thirst for knowledge.  I consider this to be the single greatest thing about her.  When she decides something is interesting, she will find out as much as she possibly can about it.  She never accepts simple answers, and is always pressing for more information.  Today, there were two objects of that scrutiny.  The first was cows, and where milk comes from, in particular.  The second was the solar system.  Yup.  Cows and space.

This morning, as Tessie was drinking her milk, she looked at me in the kind of way that told me she had been thinking very hard about something.  However, I was not prepared for what she said.  “Mom, do you know what comes out of cows butts?  Milk.”  She was so sure about it, I tried very hard not to laugh as I said that, no, in fact milk did not come out of cows butts.  So this started a full on lesson on cows, and milk production.  I explained that girl cows have something called udders that stored milk for their babies.  I asked if she remembered how I used to feed her brother milk, and said that cows did the same thing for their babies.  She of course needed more information, so we found some photographs of cows online, and I showed her the udders and teats, explaining how people could pull on them and milk would come out.  I then pointed to her glass of milk, and said “And that’s where your milk comes from.”  She looked very doubtful, but didn’t question me any further.

Later that day she asked me if she could look at pictures of planets on the computer.  I don’t know where the planet interest came from, but we found pictures and videos online.  She even watched a documentary on the solar system during quiet time.  After asking me what different planets were made of, she finally seemed satisfied. 

During dinner I thought we could show off some of her new knowledge.  So I told Nick that Tes had learned a lot about cows today.  I turned to Tessie and asked her to tell her dad where milk came from.  She looked at him, and with a very proud look on her face announced “Boobies!”  Well it wasn’t really the answer I was looking for, but I guess she was technically correct.  Knowledge is a beautiful thing.