(This is one of my favorites.)

So…… my son is now seven. And because he is technically a “big boy” and no longer a baby, sometimes I can feel myself quietly panic on the inside because I know that there is not a lot of time left where it will be cool or even normal for us to hold hands or cuddle, for the days that I will be his “mommy” and he my “little boy” are sadly numbered. Since he was born, I’ve given him millions of hugs and kisses, we’ve cuddled and held hands while walking and talking. I’ve prayed that with all of the love I have shown him, that I was successfully building a solid foundation one kiss and hug at a time in the hopes that we will forever be close. You know, weaving our hearts together so that in my old age he won’t be apt to ship me off to an assisted living facility far across the country so he and his chippy wife can plunder my bank accounts with giddy delight while I am still alive and conveniently out of the way.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately on the heels of the family bar mitzvah we attended a month ago, when it became crystal clear that time is indeed flying by and that soon enough I will no longer be “Mommy” but rather, “Ma” and then eventually I will be reduced to a dismissive nod of the head. One of my greatest fears (next to vomiting, public speaking and wearing a bathing suit) is that in my attempts to keep my relationship with my son strong, I will morph into one of those overbearing mothers of sons that they make movies about. Some of you may even know these women– domineering, desperate, annoying, meddlesome, inserting themselves in their adult sons’ lives where they do not belong simply because they cannot bear the thought that they are no longer the center of their sons’ universes. You’ve seen them, they hug their adult sons for an extra few beats longer than they should, as if they are saying their last goodbyes while the Titanic is sinking, dramatically licking their fingers to remove a smudge of dirt on their sons’ faces like they used to when they were four years old. And it is pathetic to watch, painful even, this icky marking of territory that is no longer really theirs which only serves to drive an unintended wedge between mother and son. Which. Is. What. I. Do. Not. Want.

I am constantly searching for the way to keep my connection with my son strong, to keep the flow of communication open, so that he will want to talk to me, that he will want to let me know what is going on in his life, all the while staying on the right side of the fine line that could turn him off and shut me out. Someone recently mentioned to me that at about age ten or so until his twenties, he will view me almost like an enemy, and my job when that happens is to just sit back and be okay with that. Jesus, I hope that person is wrong; I don’t think she has any children of her own to draw experience from, though I am scared she might be right. The journey to independence beats on every day for him, as it does for all young children. And while growing up seems much scarier today than it did when I did it, in these times of cyber stalkers, prescription drug addicts, and ten-year old girls who know more about sex than I do, I kind of think it is scarier for me as a parent to bear witness to the growing up of my kid.

Last weekend we went away to a mountain resort in the Poconos; a short break in the long stretch of winter ahead in order to combat the February blahs. On a recommendation from friends we headed out for our winter adventure, which for us is huge, because none of us are winter sports type of people. I, for one, have never skied, or ridden a snow-mobile, or slid down a hill in an inflatable snow-tube and I recall ice skating just three times in my life. In general I don’t really enjoy being exposed to the cold for long periods of time, and the prospect of slipping and sliding uncontrollably down an icy mountain while arctic air pierces my face in the pursuit of sport holds very little appeal to me. But for the sake of my children’s happiness and the promise of some après winter fun-sport cocktails, I figured I could find a way to break out of my tightly wound shell of snow sport avoidance and dally in some winter fun. It was for a good cause after all.

When we got to the resort and checked into our clean room, we pulled back the curtains wide and were treated to a most incredible view of the frozen lake and the snow-covered landscape. It was truly beautiful. Outside families were ice skating, tubing, riding snow mobiles, and frolicking in the snow. My son was pumped up about tubing and especially the indoor pool, and asked about every seven minutes when we could do either one of those activities… I of course was looking forward to curling up on the couch with a hot cocoa and reading a book, but how NOT fun is that to a seven-year old?

After getting our bearings, it was supper time. We moseyed on over to the main dining hall and proceeded to have a lively dinner in a dining room that served well over 500 people. During the entire dinner, the seven-year old was begging us to go in the pool. Now, I was counting on pool duty falling solely in my husband’s lap, for the toddler needed to go to sleep and I was dreading having to put a bathing suit on my pasty white-self in the middle of winter. But my husband was not feeling that great so he suggested that he put the toddler to sleep and he would rest a bit while I took the first grader to the pool. I threw this around in my mind for a little bit, not jazzed at all at the prospect of having to put my winter white-ness in a bathing suit in public. I scanned the inner recesses of my brain to see what sort of believable and important sounding excuse I could come up with in order to shirk this quasi-responsibility. But I couldn’t come up with one; I had nothing to offer that would placate the boy. We only had till Sunday, and it was still early enough in the evening, and he was begging me, just begging.

So I put my vanity aside and said, “All right. All right. Let’s go to the pool!” and my happy puppy of a son scrambled down to the hall in a state of pure elation. The notion that I would be able to hang with him without the toddler interloping, something that would create a memory for just the two of us, was far more important than how bad I thought I might have looked in a bathing suit. I just hoped there were no mirrors along the way.

We ended up having a blast. The pool was warm and fun and the toothy smiles on his face as he showed off his swimming skills and crazy jumps will forever be etched in my memory. We walked back to our hotel room after an hour or so, arm in arm, tired and happy.

The next day was Saturday, and after the morning activities, it was time for the toddler’s nap. My husband still wasn’t feeling that great, and so we all went back to the room for a bit to strategize for the afternoon. He and the toddler got ready for a nap, I took out my book, but as soon as my butt hit the couch, the first grader started in with requests that we try snow tubing. Hmmm. Snow tubing. Outside. In the snow. In the cold. In the wind. In the cold snowy wind. Sliding down a hill set at a precarious angle. In a rubber inflatable tube that had no seat belts. I figured I had already paid my dues with the indoor pool gig and I’d be viewed as hero and therefore get a pass for tubing. But seeing that my husband was in no shape to go tubing, once again, I had to put my selfish desires to curl up with my book while totally avoiding all outdoor winter sports aside, and try to create another memory for me and my kid.

Never mind that I never ever ever went snow tubing before. Never mind that the thought of sliding uncontrollably down an icy hill in a device usually reserved for gentle floating with cocktails in a swimming pool seemed terrifying to me. But I was 41, not 81 for G-d’s sake. There was still some life in me yet. And my kid was depending on me to show him a good time. So, I closed my book and said, “All right. All right. Let’s go snow tubing!” And my happy puppy of a kid scrambled, as well as he could in his heavily padded snow gear, down the hall and out the door.

We made our way over to the snow tubing deck, and I have to admit, my heart was pounding a mile a minute. Once you grabbed a tube, which weighed like twenty pounds, you had to climb up a flight of wooden stairs to a platform where you were met by a very cute college kid, who then pushed you over the threshold and down the hill, presumably to your icy death. I had visions of me spilling out of that tube, skidding unconsciously to my certain icy death while my son looked on helplessly and thinking to myself what a shit memory that would have created for him. My son looked only mildly concerned by the steepness of the track and the newness of the activity, and overall, I think he was psyched to try. I was terrified, I felt the bile rising higher and higher in my throat with each shaky step up my stairway to heaven and so I implemented some deep breathing techniques and muttered some inspirational self talk to calm me down, silently wishing that a magical genie in the form of a prescription drug dealer with some much-needed Xanax would appear. When we got to the top of the deck, the cute young buck asked if my son and I were going to ride down together, and I secretly prayed that he would want to go down with me, but was unsure which way it would go. I didn’t want to step on his toes or clip his wings, as this was a pivotal moment in his development towards calculated risk taking and having fun, but I really really needed him to hold my hand.

So thank G-d my son suggested that the first few times we go down together, to get used to it and all, which suited me just fine. After we barely got ourselves situated, with me in the tube and him on my lap, my arms wrapped around him tightly, the young buck shoved us off the ledge without so much as a warning and we were off! Sliding down the hill, with the wind driving in our faces, it was a rush! After I opened my eyes which had been squeezed tightly shut during the take off, I heard myself screaming a drunken Southern sorority girl sort of “whooooo hoooooooooooooo!!!” which was followed by a maniacal and hyena-like loony laugh which I know was a fusion of both my excitement and sheer panic. Then the cool thing was that we sort of glided into a very civilized and gentle stop at the bottom of the track, my icy death averted after all. And my son leapt off of my lap and looked at me, gave me a high-five, blissfully oblivious to just how meaningful that moment was to me and said, “Mom, that was so cool! Can we do it again?” And so for the next hour or two, I burned this memory of him and me, sliding down that hill elated, into my heart.

© Copyright 2011 Jamie Elliott Grossman

(Oldie but goodie… bear with me while I get my groove back)

I have somewhat of a potty mouth. And I freely acknowledge here that I do the bare minimum to shield my offspring from said potty mouth. I know, I know, it’s bad. What kind of mother curses like a sailor in front of her babies? I have tried to tone it down, really I have, but to be quite candid, “Muther-fudger” and “Sugar-face” just don’t have the same impact as the genuine article. I am embellishing just a bit for entertainment value of course, but the kernel of truth here is that I don’t exercise as much discretion as I probably should when it comes to cussing. I don’t do it gratuitously, mind you. There’s got to be context. I’m a stickler for context. I use the expletive deleteds when I want to be emphatic or dramatic when I am really pissed off about something. It’s not like I am walking around muttering four letter words ad hoc in the supermarket or the mall for crying out loud.

I will also admit that I can play the role of self-righteous puritan with equal aplomb when it comes to others cursing in the presence of my kids. I have very little tolerance for that; I act all offended and morally wronged when it happens. For example, say we are on our annual family beach vacation and some big dumb juicehead is dropping f-bombs left and right with my two little innocents collecting seashells within earshot nearby, I will show my displeasure in a loud, yet passive-aggressive fashion by glaring furiously at the kid while clearing my throat in a very repetitive and highly annoying manner. Then my husband will join in, until it looks and sounds like we are a deranged couple in desperate need of some Vicks Formula 44 D.

My parents get all uppity and incredulous when I start acting holier than thou about the curse words because they know who they are dealing with, and I have to be honest, it is pretty transparent. But I wasn’t always the foul-mouthed heathen that I am today. As a kid, curse words were verboten. We were so scared to utter these words, much less hear them. If my sister and I heard them spoken aloud by another child, we would cover our ears and run to our parents as fast as we could as if hearing those words would cause permanent harm. We’d be crying, “Mom, Dad, so and so said the ‘S curse!’” And then our parents would talk us down from the ledge; we’d discuss all the bad words and how we shouldn’t use them ever. And so we didn’t.

Growing up I had a major crush on a boy who lived on my block. I am not going to reveal his identity here, but this crush lasted from nursery school (yes, I know I was all of three years old) all the way until the eighth grade. He never knew. Or maybe he did know by the lustful and slightly stalker-esque gazes I shot his way any time he was within a half mile radius of me and I just freaked him out. Anyway, in the summer time, before everyone fenced in their backyards, all of us kids on the block used to roam free all day, playing kickball, hide and seek, chasing the ice cream man, etc. and we’d gather at one or another’s house for different activities. One house had a swimming pool. Another house had a big back yard perfect for kickball. At my house, my parents would set up a ping-pong table in the garage, and we’d have ping-pong tournaments. My crush, who was older than me, was a superb ping-pong player. But when he’d lose a point, he’d smash the paddle against the table and say, “damn it!” all John McEnroe-like and sexy. I was in awe. Not only was he cute and good at ping-pong, but he cursed, and he did it with confidence. Total package.

The days he’d come over and play ping-pong, I would just watch, listen and learn. Until one day, in the privacy of my own room, I decided that I was going to curse. It seemed so grown up and mature. My swear word of choice naturally would be “damn it” and it was going to be great. The problem was that I didn’t really have the whole proper context thing down. Like, one day my mother made me my favorite lunch of bologna on white bread and I chirped, “damn it!” and she inexplicably took the sandwich away and chucked it in the garbage.

After a number of other mis-used “damn-its,” one day it just clicked. I couldn’t get the left side of my hair to feather the right way so I shrieked, “damn it!” I got a honkin’ piece of Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum caught in my braces on a day we had an orthodontist appointment; seemed like a perfect opportunity to squeal, “damn it!” And then I couldn’t get the zipper of my book bag open because there was something wedged in its teeth, so I muttered a mousey, but still slightly audible “damn it” in the hallway at school as I looked nervously around for an authority figure to show up and catch me. It was liberating. I felt like a true grown-up. And so this was the slippery slope that paved the way to my current state of affairs.

One of the words I use a lot today is my beloved S-curse, or “shit”. I say it when I drop things, when I break stuff, when I can’t open a door, when I have forgotten to return the library books, or when we oversleep on a school day. It’s a pretty good word as far as curses go, not too tart, not too sweet. But for my money the Cadillac of curse words is “motherfucker.” It makes you sound tough and edgy. I don’t use that word a lot though because it frightens me just a little.

Now that the seven-year old knows how to spell, I cannot even curse in my secret spell-it-out code and there are some times when I really need a fix. But deep in my heart, I know I am not doing the kid any favors, so when I have cursed by accident in front of him, and he asks me what it means, I feel I have no choice but to be truthful and explain. I say that  it (whatever I just said) is a bad word that little boys cannot and should not say because it is nasty and will upset people. He aptly points out that I say the S-curse a lot, and then poses the question of whether that makes me nasty and upsetting people all the time?

I know I am digging myself into a hole here, appearing like a two-faced liar and basically confusing the heck out of him but I continue on and further explain that when one is an adult, there are actually a few legitimate times and places to use these words, and that context is key, though I think the subtle distinction was lost on the little guy because they haven’t yet learned about context in the first grade. So after ruminating on it a bit and feeling a modicum of guilt about all my cursing, I offered up a plan. “You know what? You are right. Maybe I do say S-curse a little too much. So from now on, every time I say the S-curse I will pay you a nickel.” The hope here was that it would curtail my cursing and at the same time give the kid an opportunity to earn some pocket change. I also thought it would be a good lesson to teach him that I am not perfect but that I am a big enough person to acknowledge where I need some improvement.

The trouble was that at five cents a curse word, my cost benefit analysis concluded that even if you adjusted for inflation, it was still a bargain basement price, and therefore the scheme would not stop me from cursing whatsoever. It was basically good economic practice to for me to pay him on a daily basis just so I could say “shit” guilt free. At least five to seven times a day the first grader was delivering me invoices with outstanding balances due or serving summonses to his personal court of justice from all the cursing I’d been doing, and then he’d stand before me like a loan shark’s henchman waiting until I paid him off. He was learning a veritable plethora of life skills from this exercise: mathematics, business transactions, assertiveness training. This idea of mine was not half bad. Except, I have to admit a few weeks ago while I was on the phone bitching to a girlfriend about a shitty thing that had happened during the day, I really did not feel like being interrupted by the newly minted morals police, which was happening, it seemed, every time I opened my mouth to speak. The power was clearly getting to the kid’s head. Exasperated, I finally thrust a check for five hundred dollars into his hand and told him to leave me the fuck alone. (Uh, hello DYFS? This is a joke; it’s called poetic license.)

Let me be clear to all you fuckers out there, I am not in any way shape or form setting forth the proposition that it is okay that I use swear words in front of my young impressionable children, nor do I think it is okay or cute if they do. But I am human, after all, and these things happen. I can promise you this, I will try to be better tomorrow if it’s the last G-d damned thing I do…

 © Copyright 2011 Jamie Elliott Grossman

(I am dusting off and republishing some of my older stuff here that was on the other site…)

In general, I think I am a pretty good mother. No, strike that. I think I am a GREAT mother. My kids are starting to form into really good human beings; they are kind, empathic, loving and smart. And I will take full credit for that, thank you very much. I make sure they truly feel loved, are well fed, have lots of books, and are reasonably clean. I read to them, I talk with them, I listen to them, I take them places, I cuddle with them. I volunteer at school. I off-ramped my “burgeoning” legal career to be with them and now work part-time from my home. I am lucky and blessed to walk my son to and fro the bus stop every single day. I am lucky and blessed to cuddle with my toddler on a rainy Tuesday morning or any time we feel like it, for that matter. I am the kind of mother that seeks vigilante-style justice on any other child who hurts my own. I would throw myself in front of a train to save my children’s lives. You get the picture.

But sometimes it gets tough to find “me” in all of this great mothering.  I suppose this is the plight of mothers everywhere and I know that I am not unique. (I have a friend currently living in the Caribbean who is also raising two little ones, but in addition to that she has to fight off wild monkeys that throw balls of poo at her and live with white lizards that can see into her soul. Now THAT is unique.)

When I look in the mirror these days, I no longer see the smooth-skinned twenty-something single-in-the-city girl with the world at my feet, who worked late hours, went to the gym, and went out at 10:00 p.m. for cocktails with girlfriends. I no longer see the young woman who only had herself to worry about. I no longer have time to blow my hair super straight with each shampoo, my roots remain woefully untouched, my eyebrows are frequently unruly, and I never read books for pleasure or the newspaper to keep informed. But it is all as it should be and I am happy with this life.

The flip side of this is that my life for the time being is not my own to do with as I please. For the most part I am okay with this—truly, for this is the life I craved, what we wished for and what we made come true. And it is all so fleeting anyway, right? Pretty soon the chickadees will fly the coop, spread their wings, and leave me in the dust… Soon there will be no more chubby hands around my neck, no more sloppy kisses on my face, no more bright-as-the-sun smiles when my son sees me as he gets off the school bus. There will come a day when they won’t want/need to jump into my bed at 3:00 a.m. Thinking about life in this way, when I am feeling overwhelmed, overworked and exhausted always gives me pause. Thinking this way re-orients me and brings me back to center.

I love the days when I am hanging with my kids, when they are close by, playing Lego’s or coloring, and I am cooking something, or doing a little work. It feels like a little slice of heaven, like having it all. When it all works, when it is in balance, all feels right in the universe. But like everything else it is unsustainable indefinitely, and we get knocked out of our pleasant orbit from time to time. When we are out of whack as a family, when no one is sleeping well, someone is stressed out or doesn’t feel well, or the kids are fighting endlessly, or screaming in the background when my boss calls (and he seems to call at the most inopportune moments lately), and I haven’t showered in a few days, it feels like things are unraveling and I cannot find a way to stop the bleeding.

I often lament over the fact that I am not a green tea-drinking, yoga-practicing, universe-accepting sort of woman. Much to my utter disappointment, I am apparently wired to be a coffee drinking, multitasking, high stress person who can get whooped up over the littlest things. Despite my efforts to not sweat the small stuff, I am who I am. My skin is not thick. I have been known to wear my emotions like a very loud Hawaiian floral print shirt. And sometimes I cannot keep my shit together.

Case in point: A few days ago, I was in major multitasking mode. Woke up way too early at 4:00 a.m. due to the fact that my children are crappy sleepers. Managed to get the first grader off to school, scrubbed a few toilets, changed the bedding, gave the toddler a bath, threw in a load of laundry, took a few calls from the office, wrote a few blurbs for my son’s school newspaper, got the toddler ready for her Mommy & Me class, grabbed a latte at the drive thru Dunkin’ Donuts, then sat in the car for two hours on my driveway while the toddler slept post-Mommy & Me class, where I proceeded to multitask some more… parsed through the mail, paid some bills online, caught up on a few phone calls to friends, answered some work emails. When the toddler woke up, I thought she would be refreshed and happy. Instead something apparently had crawled up her tiny heiney and turned my sweetie pie into a veritable beast.

When we got back into the house she threw a tantrum like no tantrum I had ever witnessed before, complete with a full body thrashing on the floor, followed by a trajectory of blocks and crayons at my freshly painted walls. When I tried to hug her, calm her, soothe her, she batted at me like a heavyweight champ. She was seriously out of control. I was perplexed and sweating, plus I was beyond exhausted from my early rising and I had to pee really badly after my latte and the two-hour imprisonment in the car. This craziness went on for about twenty minutes and I could not find a way to stop it. I was exasperated and my nerves were fried. So I grabbed her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length, looked her in the eyes and shrieked, “SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP!!!” Yup. I did. I swore, used the F-word, no less. At a two-year old. My head, as I write this, hangs in utter shame.

She looked at me, searched my eyes for the sweet loving mommy that was clearly replaced by the devil, and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. What kind of animal would yell the F-curse at her beloved two-year old? Tantrums are de rigueur for two-year olds, throwing stuff and crying– all part of the two-year old drill. Crankiness, moodiness, she can, by virtue of her tender age display all of it and it is acceptable textbook terrible twos. It is okay. For her. But I am 41. I should know better, right? After my indiscretion, I scooped her up, held her close. Breathed her in and apologized into her apple-scented hair. Then tears flowed silently. Mine.

I absolutely believe in karma. And I do believe that she can be a really big bitch. A few days after this incident, I was on the supermarket checkout line with my beloved toddler. As I unloaded the contents of the cart onto the conveyor belt, I looked down at my sweet baby girl and she looked up at me smiling, clutching what appeared to be two fistfuls of some sort of messy chocolate cake. Puzzled, I went in for a closer inspection and was met by the unmistakable and overwhelming stench of poop. I was being offered two handfuls of shit with a smile, freshly scooped out of her diaper. And conveniently my diaper bag was in the car. This, I thought to myself, should really teach me to try to keep my shit together a little bit better.

(c) Copyright 2011 Jamie Elliott Grossman

One day when I returned to work after my son was born, I was sitting around eating lunch with a few of my colleagues. Those that had children were offering me their sage advice, warning me just how fast it all goes by, how to survive the first year, and what to expect in the years ahead. As I sat there eating my tuna salad on rye, one woman who had adult children around my age tendered the most interesting of observations. She said that when you have a son there is a small window of opportunity where you, as a mother, will get to see with any regularity, your son’s penis. She said that the time will come in every mother-son relationship (usually around age ten based upon her experience) where the door to seeing your son’s penis closes only to never to reopen again, but that with daughters, you get a lifetime membership for the full Monty. As I listened with what can only be described as a combination of horror and rapt attention, no longer interested in my half-eaten tuna salad sandwich, she elaborated with what I thought was a hint of sadness, “You see, you are far more likely to go bra or swimsuit shopping with your adult daughter, where you’d share a dressing room. You might even pee in front of one another in a bathroom, and so the chances are really very good that you will see your daughter’s privates often. That’s just not the case with a son.”

All sorts of questions rattled about in my head from this revelation, like whether this woman was feeling nostalgic about her son’s long lost penis, whether she thought it was normal or healthy to see her son’s 30 something penis should a viewing of said penis be offered up to her, and what it was that I was supposed to feel about the prospect of not seeing my son’s penis ever again after a date certain?  At that moment with my son only a few months’ old, I think I could have stated with absolute certainty that if I never had to deal with a ball-coating mega poop ever again, I would be pretty okay with not seeing his penis.

But when I got home later that day, I continued to think about this woman’s theory and how it pertained to my life as both a daughter and a mother. As far as I could tell, the theory appeared to have some merit, for I do get dressed and undressed in front of my mother without thinking twice about it when we go shopping, etc. She was in the delivery room (in the catcher’s position no less) when my son was born. So yeah, she’s seen it all and continues to see it all.  But I couldn’t help thinking that maybe as an exhausted new mother of a son just trying to survive the day-to-day, maybe I was taking his penis for granted. As a new mother, not seeing his baby penis just wasn’t something that I ever thought about due in large part to the fact that as a baby my son’s penis was constantly in my face, so to speak. There were endless “defensive” diaper changes (“defensive” because I had to make sure the little willie didn’t squirt me in the face), hundreds of slippery (and scary) baths in that plastic tabletop tub and all that penis care in general. Maybe I was taking all of it for granted. Maybe there were some grounds to be wistful about my fate as far as my son’s disappearing penis was concerned.  Maybe I was supposed to be relishing each day I got to see my son’s baby penis with the knowledge that this would not always be my norm, that each day I was inching closer to not seeing it ever again.

Even though he is in first grade, our son enjoys being naked from time to time. I get it, it probably feels good to him to be free. When he knows it’s bath time he’ll run to his room like a well-trained dog and strip naked in anticipation. The bath doesn’t have to be ready for another hour, he’s perfectly content to strut around the house and go about his business, read a book, play legos, pour himself a glass of water, as if he normally lives the way I imagine they do in a nudist colony. Sometimes he will stop to check himself out in the full length mirror and even do some naked tae kwon do.  We don’t really mind it so much because he is still pretty young so as to render his nudity more cute than obscene, and he does this only in the privacy of our home when it’s just us. But there are boundaries. Like at the dinner table.

The other day we came home from tae kwon do and the kids were ravenously hungry. The first grader was also desperate for a bath because he was hot and sweaty after his workout and demanded, “Please, please, please can I take a bath right now???” I told him yes he could have a bath, but that he’d have to wait until after dinner. He was so impatient that he ran into his room anyway, stripped down and strode into the kitchen in his birthday suit. I looked at him and said, “Um, dude? Please go back to your room and put on some clothes. You cannot sit at the dinner table without any clothes on.” He rolled his eyes at me as he skulked off to his room, but minutes later emerged wearing his blue bathrobe adorned with large soccer ball and football patches all over it.

He sat down at the table ready to dive in to his plate of spaghetti, and because he is not so good at tying knots yet, his bathrobe opened up and suddenly there we were being treated to a seriously full view of his situation. And curiously, he was completely oblivious to this development as he very intensely gnawed on a meatball. I considered this scenario for a beat or two and then finally said, “Um… dude? You think you could cover up your junk while we are eating dinner?” (Yes, I really did call my seven-year-old’s penis “junk”.) He looked down at himself and then back at me, started laughing hysterically and then proceeded to jump up on his chair and gyrate. For a moment it was like being at some freaky junior Chippendale’s show, and again I said, this time with a bit more feeling, “Please get down off that chair and cover yourself up. You are at the dinner table. You need to behave. Better yet, go put on a pair of underwear. It is not acceptable to sit at the table this way, thank you very much.”  To which he replied from atop his perch on the chair, using logic only a first grader could come up with, “Mom, I do not like to wear underwear. It’s not comfortable for my nuts. Besides, aren’t I taking a bath right after dinner? I will be wasting a perfectly good pair of clean underwear which will make more work for you. So, thank you very much.”

Little bubbles of anger started streaming through my veins at the exact same time I also found myself pondering whether this conversation was one that happened with any regularity at dinner tables of other mildy dysfunctional families across America. I took a few deep cleansing breaths and focused on my parental duties and tried again, “Son, cover up your private area NOW because it is BEYOND inappropriate. Your failure to do so will result in your immediate bedtime WITHOUT a bath, and that will be just the beginning.” Reluctantly he made a yet another lame-ass and overall unsuccessful attempt to cover himself up with the robe and went back to eating his spaghetti.

Exasperated and no longer hungry, I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat because everywhere I looked, all I could see was my son’s little penis (As an aside, I know my husband upon reading this will take issue with the fact that I have described his son’s penis as little, but hey, he’s seven and relatively speaking, it is little).  There was no safe place for my eyes any longer; the room was full of little penises. I had had my fill of little penises and I thought to myself that I wouldn’t miss seeing it at all, no sir, not one bit if someone would just Make. It. Stop. I couldn’t take one more minute of it, so I got up from the table, grabbed my wine glass and sought solace in a stack of mail on the far side of the kitchen.

As I stood there and glanced over at my son across the room, I was reminded of my colleague’s lament years ago over her son’s disappearing penis. I found myself dwelling on the bigger implication of  my son’s disappearing penis; for the disappearing penis represents one of my greatest fears as a parent– that at some point I will no longer know all that goes on in my son’s life. That someday I won’t be one of the bigger parts of his life. That someday he will, as we all have done, withdraw from me just a little bit, start to keep some things private and protected, increasingly confide in friends about things that I will never know about. He will grow up. I know, I know, it’s inevitable. But as a mother to this wonderful kid, this kid who tells me stuff about his day, who seems to really like being with me, who still lets me read him stories while cuddling, who still wants me to give him baths and who still pees in front of me, well to face the realization that this will someday be very different from all I know felt like little daggers in my heart; it made me feel mournful for this thing I have not  yet lost.

I again looked over at my son and my heart warmed because I realized that his little penis at my dinner table meant that he wasn’t disappearing from me any time soon. I still had some time. So I took a really big swig of my wine and went to start his bath.

© Copyright 2011 Jamie Elliott Grossman