Are you still reading? YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.
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The start of spring means cleaning up the back yard so we can eat out there or play out there or just sit with a book and enjoy the sunshine. Yesterday the kids and I hung out outside raking leaves and pulling weeds and sweeping the patio. After a while they got bored with doing actual work, so they asked if they could play in the hot tub, which I keep lukewarm during spring and summer so it's essentially just a small pool for them to splash around in.
I told them they could, so they stripped off their clothes and hopped in.
Now, I cannot emphasize enough how much of a 7-year-old boy my son is. Meaning that not only is every other word out of his mouth something to do with butts, farts, poop, penises or vaginas, but he is constantly either touching or showing off the parts of his body relevant to those functions. He will walk into my room to ask me a question, but will do so completely naked and absent-mindedly playing with his penis. Or I'll walk into his room while he's getting dressed and he'll turn around and wiggle his butt at me.
On more than one occasion, I have said to him, "could you PLEASE put some underwear on? I am so tired of looking at your anus."
Then I'll have to explain what "anus" means, while he laughs uproariously.
Though I assumed he would grow out of it by now, he still spends much of his time in the house pantsless, if not fully naked. I will walk out of a room in which he and Josie are sitting watching TV, fully clothed, and I will return 10 minutes later and find them still watching TV, but with pants and underwear on the floor.
"Why did you take off your pants?" I'll ask.
"We didn't feel like wearing pants," they'll respond, as if my question is a totally unreasonable one.
So, back to yesterday in the hot tub.
They were playing and splashing and giggling. They turned the jets on and they turned them off. Giggle giggle. Then they turned them on again. Giggle.
Suddenly Zeke got out of the water and headed to the house.
"I need to go potty," he said.
"Go ahead," I responded.
About 7 minutes later, he came back outside.
"Mama, I have a problem."
I looked over at him. He was naked and wet, but had rivers of brown running down his legs.
"Zeke, is that ... poop?"
He nodded, chagrined.
"What happened??"
He shrugged and said, "I think I have diarrhea."
I took a deep breath.
"Honey, what happened when you were in the hot tub?"
He answered me. Turns out, he gave himself an enema with the hot tub jets.
"Why did you do that?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said. "I thought it would be funny."
I sighed heavily. "OK. Don't move."
I went inside to get towels. I was not at all surprised to find that he had tracked mud and shit through the house. I spent the next 15 minutes cleaning shit off the floor, the toilet, and Zeke himself, and then I ran him a bath and insisted that he scrub all of his parts with soap. I explained that not only was what he did incredibly gross, but also incredibly dangerous, because he could have perforated his colon and given himself a horrible infection (or worse). I played up the death angle.
"Sweetie, you cannot EVER do that again. You could get a horrible infection and die!"
He was solemn and contrite, and promised never to do it again.
Meanwhile, Josie played happily in the hot tub. When I went back outside, she said, "Mama, I didn't do anything wrong. I'm a good girl!"
Well, she's a girl, at least, so I've got that going for me. Because I don't think I could have handled another boy.
Ugh.
I thought it would be funny.
ReplyDeleteI heard those words many times over the years.
It never ends.
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