What is that thing in the back of my float?

Translated: What is that thing in the back of my throat? My son proceeded to ask me this during the morning tooth brushing sing-a-long (don't ask). I paused for a minute and said, "I don't know, I will find out and tell you".

Then I started thinking of Monster House, there is a part of the house they called it....(thinking to self) called it...(it comes to me....or so I think)...it's called a vulva. So I proceed to tell my son that it is called a Vulva. (It sounded kinda right....at least at 7 am).

He then asks what it does....so how do I spend my morning? Researching to find out what it is really called and what it does....I mean I don't want to be the dumb mom. I just hope he doesn't tell the kids at school he knows where his vulva is! (sigh). Although he is in Kindergarten, so they don't really know either, unless he shares his new found knowledge with his teacher...who i think will know...considering it is well past 7 am now.

So for those that didn't know, it is an Uvula (see kinda sounds the same....right?) Here is the function:

The uvula plays an important role in the articulation of the sound of the human voice to form the sounds of speech.[1] It functions in tandem with the back of the throat, the palate, and air coming up from the lungs to create a number of guttural and other sounds. Consonants pronounced with the uvula are not found in English; however, languages such as Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Ubykh, and Hmong use uvular consonants to varying degrees. Certain African languages use the uvula to produce click consonants as well. In English (as well as many other languages), it closes to prevent air escaping through the nose when making some sounds.

Now, the question is how do I break that down to a 5 year old? Let's hope first that vulva didn't stick and I can easily trade the word out with the right one. Then, I will state briefly that it's job is to help us talk....ok, that covers the basics, right?