We have watched the movie Black Beauty three times in the past two weeks.

One segment shows Black being born. The scene is rich with fluids and orifices.

While watching the birth, I heard in my mind's ear the voice of my sister Eileen, guiding me to be clear about the role of the uterus. When she was a new mom, she neglected to tell her son that only females can carry babies inside their bodies. When her boy Andrew discovered at age 3 that he'd never be a mother, he wept.

My two deliveries have been C-sections, so I've been thinking that I was covered, or at least I'd be found not guilty, for telling Miles that he and Charlie came out of my belly. Done. Me and my vagina dialogs had been curtailed due to irrelevancy.

Yesterday I said something as we watched Black Beauty make his entrance into the world. I described how and from where Black was exiting his mom and I used anatomically correct language. I told my son that only female horses can carry babies inside, just like only female humans can get pregnant. Miles nodded. He was more interested in tracking how fast Black Beauty changes from a gooey blob-in-a-sac into a wobbly walking horse.

This morning as we drove to return the video to the library, Miles asked if we could renew the film again.

"You know what my favorite, favorite, most favorite part is?" he posed from the back seat of the car. I knew it was something to do with Ginger, Black Beauty's best horse friend whose death in the movie brought my boy to tears. Ginger, Ginger, Ginger, it's all I ever hear.

"The toolest part," he started (the ability to pronounce a hard C still eludes him), "the most toolest, toolest part is when the horsie tumms out of his mommy's puh-china, it's so, so, so toooool."

Will my son one day be an obstetrician? A veterinarian? A key grip or gaffer for an Animal Planet series? Any or all would make me proud.

But for now, my next goal for my boy is to master the hard C.