Tuesday, February 17, 2009

No little boy

I had one interesting, unsettling, discovery this weekend.

Son has discovered that his penis, who he has named George, has a function other than to pee with. This will be funny a couple of years down the line, but right now, I don't know what to think about it.

So here's the deal. It's Sunday morning, and since we were all going a bit stir-crazy, we decided to get out of the house. That entails wearing something other than PJs. I sent Son into his room to get dressed, and had his clothes laid out on the bed. Son went into his room, closed the door (which he normally does to keep BabyA out), and I went off to put in a load of laundry. I came back upstairs after a good 20 minutes, expecting to find Son at least partly done getting dressed. He's three after all, and well, it usually takes time.

I open his door to find him sitting on his bed, naked, with, um, George, standing at attention, and Son looking a little guilty. I ended up being as flustered as he was, so I retreated, closed the door and told him to get dressed through the closed door. I went out to talk to Husband about whether this was normal, and all he did was laugh. I was mortified. Finally, 40 minutes after he first went in, Son emerged. Husband tried to talk to him, and told him that if he had any questions, Husband would try to answer them. They did this rather discretely, and that was about it.

Needless to say, this happened a couple of more times that day. He hasn't done it since, and I haven't had a desire to revisit it. I mean, I understand that he would be curious at some point, and that he would eventually figure it out, but I was holding out for him to be, oh, say, 13, not three. I don't want him to be shy or feel guilty; it's a part of his anatomy, and this is how it works. It's just hard for me to see my son in that light-that someday he will be a sexual creature. I want him to stay my innocent little boy, dammit!

I never really considered that this would be part of being the mother to a son. When it comes to BabyA, I should be able to handle this-I have the same equipment and biology, so we're in it together. However, not quite so much the case with a boy. I have an even bigger appreciation for single moms that have to deal with this.

I know, I know, just a part of growing up. But, I, but....oh geez.

1 comment:

Angie said...

OMG, I was not prepared for this aspect of parenting either! I grew up in with six girls. But let me tell you - consider yourself lucky that this is the first "incident". Keegan brought the subject up to me when he was two! The first time he was complaining about it, I panicked and told him to "walk it off". :) Nice, huh? Now, I direct him to his daddy.