I’ve raised a couple rabbits before. They -bark-! Sort of.
Seriously…if a rabbit is pissed off at you, or whatever happens to be on the wrong side of it’s temper–they emit a very startling growl/bark.
On another note…Rabbits are some of the most foul-tempered, evil things that ever hopped along the green Earth. Anyone who thinks a rabbit is ‘timid’ is gravely mistaken! (He hides his battle-scarred hands)
When my big sis’ was little she was learning animal sounds in preschool. My dad went through all the animals then decides to be a smart ass:
Dad:Helen, what does a dog say?
Helen: Woof Woof
Dad: what does a cat say?
Helen: Meow Meow
Dad: What does a turtle say?
Helen: [long pause] tuuuuuuurtle tuuuuuuuurtle
All right pop quiz - How many people read this and immediately flashed to the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
My boys are 8 and 3 and have never asked me about infinity or anything like it! Maybe I need to start expanding their horizons a little bit!!! My 3 year old did ask me on the way for his check up if doctors fart… accompanied by the appropriate sounds… I am so proud!
::raises hand::
Then again, I think of that scene anytime someone mentions rabbits.
Or anytime anyone mentions rabbits…
My parents were actually rather frank about these sorts of questions. And pretty open-minded when it came to questions like “Where did mankind come from?” Of course, by now everyone knows that the universe was created by a giant potato, and that potatoism will show you the light.
One of the coolest things my parents did for me was when my mom explained the pythagorean theorem to me when I was 9 or 10 years old. I wouldn’t expect many people nowadays to even know the pythagorean theorem, much less be able to explain it to a child. But I got it.
I’m still awaiting the day when a child asks me why the sky is blue and I can do some kind of model to show them why. That would be the coolest part of parenting. 
[slight hijack]
When it came to the “Where do babies come from?” question, I don’t remember exactly what my parents said, but it was something along the lines of “The woman gets pregnant, the baby grows inside her belly, and then comes out.” I don’t remember them ever explaining exactly how a woman gets pregnant, or how it comes out (I just assumed the doctor cut it out from the abdomen everytime) but I didn’t ask. This is probably how I’ll talk to my kids about that subject, and if they inquire further, I’ll tell them about everything. But that’s a whole other thread.
[/hijack]
This is why I’m thrilled and terrified at the prospect of one day being an uncle. (My brother’s 17 now, of course, so it may still be a little while yet.)
Originally posted by Crunchy Frog
I instinctively raised the Holy Hand-grenade up on high.
Originally posted by tubagirl
I got a toothache, that was so sweet.
I explained to my 6 year old son and his 7 year old cousin that infinity is not a number, that it means “bigger than any number you can think of,” and that infinity plus one is still infinity. They understood this.
Mind you, they didn’t actually ask. This was precipitated by a round of, “well I’ve got infinity power, well I’ve got infinity plus one power, well I’ve got infinity plus infinity power, well I’ve got infinity plus infinity plus infinity power…” At least they haven’t done this since.
[slight hijack]
When I was 16, I told a 17 year old male acquaintance the following joke: What should you do if you come across an elephant? Wipe it off.
He didn’t get it. I thought he just didn’t get the pun, but even after stressing the pun (“wipe it off… come across… come… wipe come”) it became apparent that he had never heard of the alternate meaning. And I thought I lived a sheltered life.
[/slight hijack]
In retrospect I’ve always felt bad for putting my father through an explanation nightmare. I was reading comics and came across (no elephant reference there) a panel with “#%%@%$” in it and innocently asked my father how to pronounce it.
He patiently explained to me that the symbols represnted swearing and bad language. Too young to fully appreciate the abstract nature of something reprsenting generalities I persisted with “Okay, but how do you say it?” Thank god for his patience and the fact he didn’t think I was trying to get him to tell me some swear words. I just got hung up on the fact that there was something written that wasn’t pronouncable…
1995: The first rendezvous of a NASA spacecraft with the Russian space station MirThis is also a nice thing foreign students do.
My boyfriends family almost always has a foreign student in the house… and they always ask that kind of stuff around his friends.
So his friends urge him to tell them, and nice bloke that he is, he does it. (As I was a foreign student too, I just tried it out… he was kind of relieved when he found out I already knew what penis, masturbation and many other words I asked him about meant…
He only explained one of them then he realized I was pulling his leg… well well… there are so many cruelties one can do to a sweet person…
the freaky thing about kids is that they dont do it on purpose I guess 
dodgy
Well judging by the pic on your web page, the * correct * answer would be
“because I’m so damned good looking”
Oh and your human looks pretty hot too.
What can I say, I’m a sucker for blue eyes and a devilish grin.
Crunchy Frog, I’ll answer you as soon as I finish feasting upon the lambs, and the stoats, and the carp, and the breakfast cereals . . .
Actually, the hardest question I ever got from one of my kids resulted from one of my own trying-to-be-a-good-mom answers. My daughter was about three or four, and we had to go to the funeral of a very elderly female relative. My daughter of course asked what “being dead” was, and I said something like, “When you get really old, you don’t need your body any more, so it dies” (and then into the "nobody knows what happens to you after that, but some people say - "). About a month later, my daughter pipes up with, “Mom, who was that woman who didn’t need her body anymore?” Must have taken me five minutes of frantic thought, trying to figure out what in the world she was talking about!
Are you trying to say that A) your mother actually didn’t know and B) you had the nerve (gall…stupidity…something) to try and explain the concept to her???
Even if it’s only “B”, I have to ask:
WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?
sigh…A and B…as to what I was thinking, I was fighting ignorance of course…and wishing I were anywhere but there!
W
e even discussed this incident recently…mainly with me saying “I thought you knew already - what the hell were you actually laughing at in all those jokes on TV for so long?” Fortunately, I have a good relationship with my mom…
I saw a roleplaying game going on in college. There was a woman from Russia playing an assasin. Her character met her nemesis and they traded banter. The nemesis, played by the Game Master, said, “I am going to get you, you bitch.” She responded, “What is ‘bitch’?” Really, she did. Cracked the GM up.
When my nephew first started reading fantasy, he wrote a short story for me. It was your traditional dragons and trolls sort of thing. I was reading while walking through the mall with him. When I sort of snorted at something, he asked me what was wrong. I said, “Robert, what is a trollop?”. His answer? Well, a trollop is a female troll, of course!
StG
I have eleven year old twin girls who happen to ‘like’ the same boy at school. A few weeks ago were talking about boys and dating when one of the girls very matter of factly said that they both planned on marrying him when they grew up. I found it difficult to expalin why polygamy illegal in this country…but must have gotten the sharing thing across pretty well at some point.