>The Episode
>Wednesday will forever live in my mind not only for the Cataclysmic Event That Shall Not Be Named, but also because on that extraordinarily fateful day, Bruiser experienced a rite of passage that will affect him for the rest of his life…
He discovered his. Uh… You know.
“Mommy!” Punky yelled from the kitchen floor on that most significant of afternoons. “Bruiser taked his diaper off!” This was not an out of the ordinary occurence, unfortunately. I sighed and looked down from where I was eating lunch at the table and… there he was. Discovering. And laughing loudly.
Punky was laughing, too. “It’s so silly!” she giggled helplessly. “He has a belly button way down there!” The three of us sat laughing for a few minutes, me feeling slightly guilty. What was the protocol for this situation? I hadn’t exactly read up on it, what with the burning of the baby advice books and all. I resisted an urge to snatch his hand up and say, “Get away from there,” which is what I do in just about every other situation in which he finds himself. Instead, I politely looked away as he poked and prodded and chortled with glee. And when he was done, I put his diaper back on.
I half-expected the next morning to see a hair or two growing from his chin when I pulled him from his crib, or hear the crackle of manhood creep into his “Mah-mees.” But in the aftermath of what I now refer to as The Episode, he’s remained pretty much unchanged. There is no newfound wisdom in his eyes, no knowing grin when he spies girl babies in the YMCA nursery. There hasn’t even been a repeat of The Episode, although he does try to sneak in a little self-awareness each time I change his diaper.
And I’m realizing this whole thing marks a milestone for me, too. It’s the first of many, many occasions, I feel certain, in which I wonder how on earth I’m supposed to raise a… boy.
>Oh boys and their “exploring”. Mine is 4 and while it has slowed down some he’s still pretty interested in what’s in his pants. When he was around 2 it became an honest to god obsession! I never wanted to make him feel like it was bad behavior so we just established “private time”. This was a time when he could go in his room by himself and have some privacy. I didn’t bother him and he usually came out about 5-10 minutes later. I didn’t think we’d have these episodes until he was at least 13 or so!
>My son will be 2 in July, he um sleeps with his hand down his diaper, nice right? Makes him pee all over himself. Last night he peed in his potty, STANDING UP, and when he pees outside he shakes it off! I have no idea boys did these things!!! AGH
>The fascination with that thing is only beginning. My son figured out that a little miniature mug (a trinket from a gumball machine)fit perfectly on him. And as luck would have I got there just in the nick of time to snap a picture.Oh and just wait until Bruiser realizes he can pee just about anywhere with that thing. Peeing outside is a favorite pasttime of my sons.
>And so it begins! Our son “discovered” himself in the bath when he was six months old. Luckily, I didn’t have to quickly think of what to say or do because, without missing a beat, my husband grabbed his rubber ducky bath toy and said, “Here, play with your duck, not your d—.”
>Again, my kids are on the slowside of development. My son hasn’t noticed himself at all and he is 2 yrs old. He does pinch his butt a lot, but I don’t know what to make of that. *sigh* Maybe I should have him checked out? 😉
>Well, there you are.In case anyone of the female persuasion has ever wondered when that, um, fondness for their weenis starts? My sister in law has a ultrasound video of her son at 5 months in utero, happily twiddling away…
>Boys are a treat. My two used to poke it in and laugh as it popped back out. I finally convinced them to keep that game until bath time. I thought my troubles were over until I walked in to my son’s room unannounced, hint he is 18 and it was late. I now yell all the way down the hall!!! It is a never ending nightmare! heh!
>Oh no, Justmylife did not!Seriously, boys are so much easier than girls–you’ll be fine.
>Am I the only one with a girl who was interested? I finally gave her a mirror when she was 3 b/c it was getting out of control. Once she got the full view of her parts she moved on. Well, after a week of viewing she moved on.
>Both my sons named their special friends before they turned three. “Bob” and “George” are very special friends, especially now that my sons are teenagers!
>Okay, wait until they wake up and it’s poking straight out. The first time it happened here, my son couldn’t pee and came into my room pushing his highly alert groin into my face, screaming, “Mommy, get it down! Get it down!” Always a joy.
>Oh the exploring. My son is only 8 months old and “discovered” himself about 2 months ago. I can’t change his diaper without his hands flying down there. What is worse for me, though, is when I change his diaper and it is standing right up. At 8 months old!? Are you kidding!? I was shocked. But apparently it’s normal. Still, though, I hope this doesn’t become a “thing” that he does in public!
>Lol! My son discovered his in the bath around 8 months and there’s been no turning back. He and his peeps have quality time in the bath every day. He’s tried to feed it to his rubber ducky, stuck it into every cup and bottle in the bath, and insists on washing it at least three times “all by mahsef”. And yes, as one person said, it does get even weirder. I had no idea little boy’s could get um…you know whats…until roo summoned me into the bathroom one morning with a gleeful “hey mama! my peeps is so big! cool!”Lol,Anna
>Oh, just wait. He’ll come home from school calling it a weiner. That’ll be a proud day.
>You don’t raise boys; you can only be the flue to their rushing water.
>b – You’re not the only one. Girls can be just as curious about their parts as boys.And girls have easier access when wearing those cute summer dresses.
>My son has loved his “boy bits” since he could reach down there!Lately (he’s now 4), he will be sitting innocently, watching TV and all of a sudden, he’ll holler, “mommy, my boy bits is pokey”…and sure enough, he’s got a raging…well, you know! I tell him, “just leave it be, it’ll go away in a minute”, and once the focus is off, it’s all over. I do NOT want to experience the same thing as Justmylife did…but if my boy is anything like his dad (based on the stories my hubby’s told me, of course), it’ll be more difficult to walk in on him NOT doing anything “private”!
>There was a bath scene here last week, where my boy discovered he could be a submarine with a, umm, periscope. He thought it was a riot! Hey, one less person in the house with monthly cycles. And that’s not so bad!
>When he gets older, you can treat it like nose-picking. It’s going to happen, but it’s one of those things that needs to be done in the privacy of the bathroom.That’s our rule, anyway.AG (Mom of 3 fondlers, wife of one “adjuster”)
>My little girl – 14 months – recently discovered herself, too, and plays with herself in the bathtub. She’s also put several tub toys down there…which I put a stop to when it happens. The hands, though – what’s to be done? Unless we’re mid-poopy-diaper change, I just let it go. No harm done, right? RIGHT?
>I figure my son is just exploring his body… I mean it IS HIS body. Obviously at this age, it isn’t anything sexual. Although, in the future, if it is, I don’t really see anything wrong with that either.I don’t say anything at this point, but we will have the “some things are to be kept private” talk in the future.
>And you will spend the next 18 years saying “Huhhhh?”
>Your comments are CRACKING ME UP!!! Who knew there was so much action among the young?!
>I remember watching my boys in the tub and calling a friend to ask if they could actually pull those things off. It looked so painful I was convinced they would injure themselves. Turns out those things can take quite a lot of abuse. And if my husband is any example they will never lose interest in it-unlike all of the toys I have purchased (at least these don’t require batteries!). Now if they could just use them for good (or at least control them enough to get the pee into the toilet).
>The comments are cracking me up. I called my hubby to come read most of them! Oh the joys of parenthood. I’ve got two girls the 6yo sleeps with her hand down the front of her shorts (I have no idea??) and the 3yo went through a stage when she was about 2 when I seriously thought she’d been possessed by an adolescent male dog that had not been neutered! How could one person have so much energy for humping things?! Good gawd!
>Ah yes. I also finally established “private time” when my son was about three or four and he spent a lot of time in the bedroom with the door closed. Of course, he’d first announce that he was going upstairs to close the door, which I always found cute. ;^) I told him it was fine for him to spend as much private time as he wanted, but he had to wash his hands afterward. It cracked me up to hear him come out of the bedroom and hear the water running. 🙂
>Hang in there…you’ve got a few years between him discovering cootie-carrying girls — ugh — and the fact that girls really don’t carry cooties — yowza.
>Its amazing at what an early age they discover themselves..and that it continues to be such a source of entertainment. My son (who’s 5)also found his quite amusing when it was at attention. His response..”It looks like a buffalo horn mom!” Definitely wasnt expecting that comparison! And then he discovered the attached “tentacles” and decided that from a certain perspective they looked like a “brain.” Yes, his parts provide us with no end of interesting comments.
>This boy thing is new for me as well, having only daughters up until four years ago.My son has know where his is for a while now. I actually looked over the other day and he was paying it some attention. Not what I want to see at 7 a.m. when I haven’t had my morning coffee. Hell, not what I wanted to see at 7 a.m. if I had a cup of coffee.Welcome to being the mother of a boy who knows where his twig and berries are….
>yep…2 and a half here and every day is tons of time spent down the undies. He is cnstantly telling me he has a “big penis”! I waked in onesay to him lying on the couch in nothing but undies and his hand down them watching TV. I just asked him if he wanted a beer and the remote…LOL! We have started telling him that he only touches his penis when he has to pee…not sure I it’s working yet…
>My son found it, but hasn’t become obsessed with it. Not yet, anyways. He is, however, curious to know who else has what he has. “You haf peNIS? I do. I do have peNIS!” It could be worse, I suppose. He could ask to check for you or offer to show you his.I think I just jinxed myself.
>Just wait until he can talk, Lindsey. My 3 year old announced to his grandparents last week that “Mommy has a ‘gina!”. And while I was talking to him on the phone from work the other day, he yelled “I have a penis!”, apparently thinking this was an amazing enough topic to keep me on the phone. And he frequently announces, with no apparent reason, “I have a foreskin.”.
>”We were so poor,” he likes to say, that if I hadn’t been a boy, I wouldn’t have had anything to play with.”(Dickie Scruggs, quoted in The New Yorker, May 19, 2008)*****My sons are now in their late 30s, but these comments brought it all back to me.
>These comments are cracking me up! My boys are 11 and 9, and neither of them have ever announced to me that they have an erection. I don’t know what I would say if they did, either!My daughter is 2.5, and she likes to narrate her diaper changes-“are you going to wipe my buh-gina?” ha!