Special Parts
Bridgette Burge
Lately my son, Jake, has taken to exploring his “special parts” pretty thoroughly, especially in the bathtub. He’s four, and I don’t want him to feel ashamed or embarrassed, and hey, it’s his body, so I generally just let him fiddle away. The other night I’m sitting there by the tub reading a book while he’s playing in the water. I glance up and notice he’s doing his thing again. After a few minutes, he gets particularly quiet and he has this really strange look on his face.
“Jake are you pooping in the bathtub?!”
“No!”
“Then why do you have that weird look on your face?”
“Well, I just pushed a crayon way up my booty.”
“Ah Jesus, Jake. Well get out of the tub, sit on the potty and see if you can push it out.”
He can’t. Not after repeated red-purple faced grunts. Not after 45 minutes. Three different pediatricians tell me I have to take him to the emergency room. I call friends, Jake’s Grammie, other mamas, my dad, my best friend’s mother’s husband just because he’s a nurse…you get the picture.
Finally, my partner Pete gets home. He calls his mom who’s a mother of four and she calmly tells us he’ll “pass it” and not to worry.
I worry anyway, of course. After a few more kids maybe it won’t bother me if they crap out small reptiles, but Jake’s my first and only. So I’m picturing twisted, impacted, internally exploding bowels. I pull out a rubber glove, lube up a finger and go in.
“Mama, you’re touching my special parts. Ha, ha, ha, ha! You’re gonna get poop on your finger! Ha, ha, ha, ha!” I can’t feel a damn thing.
“Jesus, Jake, how far did you push it up there?”
“Waaaay up there. Get it out! My belly hurts! Just push in there and grab it with your hand! Did you get it, Mama? Huh? Did you grab it? Huh? Want the tweezers? I can go get my tool set, Mama.”
No luck. Pete suggests giving him an enema. He’s so brilliant.
Twenty minutes and a buck-fifty later, we’ve got the kid laying nude, sideways on a towel on the bathroom floor, shoving a lubed-up enema in his rectum.
“Ok, ready? It’s gonna feel weird when the water goes in, but I don’t think it’ll hurt.” I squeeze his little cheeks together and tell him the directions say we need to wait five minutes. About thirty seconds later he yells, “I gotta poop. NOW!” Out plops a red, Crayola bathtub crayon, in all its slimy glory. Jake beams.
I was clearly more traumatized than Jake and he knew it. The next morning Jake gets mad at me when I tell him it’s time to go to school. After the ritual negotiation, begging, counting, bribing, I eventually yell at him. He screams back, “You stupidhead! I’m just gonna go up in your bathroom, find something really big and push it way up my booty!”
Showing posts with label Bridgette Burge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bridgette Burge. Show all posts
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
A Letter to My Little Unintentional Radical
A Letter to My Little Unintentional Radical
Bridgette Burge
Dear Little Mister,
You’ve turned two. On your birthday we had cake, presents, balloons, and we took care of some last minute details of our plans to crash Senator John Edwards’ presidential fundraiser party. You were most cooperative that day. Just like you knew what was brewing.
Since you were baking in my womb, you’ve been a little peace activist. Your first in-utero action was when you’d existed for about fifteen weeks. We were trying to get President Bush to sign on to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, banning the development and testing of new nukes. He didn’t. He must be too busy keeping us safe and all.
Wonder what you think of your conscription into the peace and justice movement. Wonder what you’ll think of it when you’re sixteen, and thirty-six. Already I worry about making you do something you don’t believe in and haven’t decided for yourself. But that’s a bit ridiculous, right? You’re tiny, and it’s my responsibility to make decisions for you, until you can make them for yourself. So, guess that makes our peace and justice work my prerogative.
When I was pregnant with you, your daddy and I shared our fears about how you’d turn out. His surfer-Topsail Island-North-Carolina-born-self’s biggest fear was that you’d be afraid of the water. No joke. That was his biggest fear. Mine was that you’d turn out to be some racist, sexist, militarist, homophobic, capitalist Republican.
If that doesn’t sum up why your daddy and I didn’t last past your eighth month on this side of belly, I don’t know what would.
A few weeks ago, the local NPR station aired a grossly edited, totally de-politicized three minutes out of a two and a half hour interview with you and me. Someone please explain to me how it’s possible to nearly de-politicize an interview about war and peace!
The reporter found it “compelling” that your paternal step-grandpa is now serving in the military somewhere in the Gulf, and here’s your wacky momma demonstrating against the war on some corner in Raleigh. You pulled your weight, too, during that rowdy, little demo. I love that photo of your candlelit, rosy-cheeked self, grasping onto a “Support My Grandpa, Bring Him Home” poster. What a little media magnet you are, Jake!
Ok all you two-year olds, here’s Jacob’s favorite rally chant. It goes like this:
When I say, “George Bush,” you say “Ew!”
“George Bush.”
”Ew!”
“George Bush.”
“Ew!”
Nicely done, little futures of this world.
Raising children is probably the most important work in the world. I think being a full time activist is a distant second, though it probably doesn’t seem like that to you when I’m working all those long, long hours. But, doing anything else just wouldn’t feel right.
In fact, Jake, as long as you can say the same thing about what you choose to do with your life, then I’ll be proud as pie. That’s right, even if you do end up a racist, sexist, homophobic, capitalist, Republican. I’ll love you, I’ll be proud of who you are and not what you believe, and I’ll be on your damned front lawn with a picket sign.
Your mama,
Bridgette
Bridgette Burge
Dear Little Mister,
You’ve turned two. On your birthday we had cake, presents, balloons, and we took care of some last minute details of our plans to crash Senator John Edwards’ presidential fundraiser party. You were most cooperative that day. Just like you knew what was brewing.
Since you were baking in my womb, you’ve been a little peace activist. Your first in-utero action was when you’d existed for about fifteen weeks. We were trying to get President Bush to sign on to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, banning the development and testing of new nukes. He didn’t. He must be too busy keeping us safe and all.
Wonder what you think of your conscription into the peace and justice movement. Wonder what you’ll think of it when you’re sixteen, and thirty-six. Already I worry about making you do something you don’t believe in and haven’t decided for yourself. But that’s a bit ridiculous, right? You’re tiny, and it’s my responsibility to make decisions for you, until you can make them for yourself. So, guess that makes our peace and justice work my prerogative.
When I was pregnant with you, your daddy and I shared our fears about how you’d turn out. His surfer-Topsail Island-North-Carolina-born-self’s biggest fear was that you’d be afraid of the water. No joke. That was his biggest fear. Mine was that you’d turn out to be some racist, sexist, militarist, homophobic, capitalist Republican.
If that doesn’t sum up why your daddy and I didn’t last past your eighth month on this side of belly, I don’t know what would.
A few weeks ago, the local NPR station aired a grossly edited, totally de-politicized three minutes out of a two and a half hour interview with you and me. Someone please explain to me how it’s possible to nearly de-politicize an interview about war and peace!
The reporter found it “compelling” that your paternal step-grandpa is now serving in the military somewhere in the Gulf, and here’s your wacky momma demonstrating against the war on some corner in Raleigh. You pulled your weight, too, during that rowdy, little demo. I love that photo of your candlelit, rosy-cheeked self, grasping onto a “Support My Grandpa, Bring Him Home” poster. What a little media magnet you are, Jake!
Ok all you two-year olds, here’s Jacob’s favorite rally chant. It goes like this:
When I say, “George Bush,” you say “Ew!”
“George Bush.”
”Ew!”
“George Bush.”
“Ew!”
Nicely done, little futures of this world.
Raising children is probably the most important work in the world. I think being a full time activist is a distant second, though it probably doesn’t seem like that to you when I’m working all those long, long hours. But, doing anything else just wouldn’t feel right.
In fact, Jake, as long as you can say the same thing about what you choose to do with your life, then I’ll be proud as pie. That’s right, even if you do end up a racist, sexist, homophobic, capitalist, Republican. I’ll love you, I’ll be proud of who you are and not what you believe, and I’ll be on your damned front lawn with a picket sign.
Your mama,
Bridgette
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