Lost in Explanation

This morning Benjamin was looking through "Horton Hatches an Egg" while I was washing dishes. He was very interested in Horton's eyes at different places in the book. When Horton was sitting on the egg in the snow, his eyes were red and Ben asked if Horton was tired. I told him I thought maybe he was cold since he was covered in snow. So at the end of the book when the egg hatches and the bird comes out looking like an elephant with wings, Benjamin wanted to know why his eyes looked the way they did. I told him that Horton was surprised and happy that the the bird came out looking like him. Then I got to thinking about it and thought it was sort of like adoption. The child has many of the same traits as his/her birth family, but also takes on traits of his/her adoptive family over time. Benjamin is just starting to try to grasp adoption, so I tried to explain my thoughts to him about the connections between the story and adoption in terms he could understand. Apparently I didn't do a very good job because he got a funny look on his face and said "when I was born I looked like an elephant?"