The only way I can get a shower in this house is to get up at an ungodly hour, take my youngest into the bathroom with me or wait until my husband comes home.
Desperate, I took my son into the bathroom with me the other day. I suppose I had a great urge to be humiliated.
"Momma! You have boo-boos on your chest!"
"They're not boo-boos."
"Do they hurt?"
"Don't you have a book you can read?"
He looked at my post-birth-times-five belly. "You're BIG, Momma!"
"Okay, out." I'd rather take my chances and find him welcoming carpet cleaning men and Jehovah Witnesses into the house while I am indisposed than to suffer under his intense scrutiny.
Now I have to deal with him peeking up my shirt in great awe. It's not like they weren't a big part of his life just a few years ago. I suppose that's something he forgot, though I can't imagine how. He remembers everything else to a T.
"Momma, remember when I was in your womb and you had too much garlic one day and it made me kick up a storm and keep you awake all night?"
"Momma, JD just took my $#%* ball and he won't #$%*&%$ give it back!"
"Where did you hear words like that?"
"Momma, you just said them yourself last Friday at exactly 3:42 p.m."
So why can't this child remember where he left his shoes? Or his jacket? Or his sandwich? And why can't he remember to NOT answer the front door when I am in the shower?
For more humiliation I take him into the bathroom with me when I have to go. It saves me an extra two hours of housework and grocery shopping to replace the cleaning products, spaghetti sauce and shampoo that he pours everywhere and finger-paints with when I'm not looking.
"I heard that, Momma. What did you do?"
"You know what I did."
"Did you make a poopy?" he says, with his hands on his hips and a big grin on his face.
I'd wait to go until my husband comes home, but I just can't hold it that long. So my son gives me a sticker. This is what we have accomplished since I got him some potty videos to encourage him. At least one of us has been trained.
Modesty is the first sacrifice of motherhood. You lose it the minute you see the positive result on a pregnancy test stick and you never get it back until the youngest develops some sense of modesty himself.
For me that means I have been publicly humiliated for thirteen years. Only two more to go!
