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Jiggly Bits
Sarah Carson
for Spotlight
What’s up with the whole sporadic modesty thing with kids?
Take this morning, for example. There I am, making tea biscuits for a late Sunday breakfast. Happily humming along to whatever is playing on the radio.
“Ben!!” I call out “Time to get dressed! Your buddies will be here soon so you’d better get ready!”
I hear him thunder up the stairs to his room, but the next thing I know he’s behind me again in the kitchen, naked as a jay-bird and shaking what his momma gave him like there’s no tomorrow. Its’ show time and I (unfortunately) had a front row seat.
“Mom! Hey Mom! Look at me! I’m doing the Naked-Boy Jig! Can you videotape me mom? I want to see me doing it too.”
Uh, hang on just a minute… is this really the same kid that practically goes into convulsions if his brother laughingly taunts him about “seeing Ben’s privates” while they’re getting ready on a school morning?
Ben has reached a point where I can’t be within 50 miles of his room if he’s getting dressed. Heaven forbid I should get an eyeful of his skinny little butt…and he practically gets on the fog horn to announce when it comes time to use the bathroom. You know - just in case I get any ideas of heading in there and enjoying some mother-son time while he’s on the throne…
“Mom, I’m going to the upstairs bathroom, ok? So don’t come in. The upstairs bathroom. I’ll tell you when I’m done. Don’t come in ‘til I tell you.”
Gee, son, I’ll try really hard to resist the urge to join you.
One moment he’s “grown up” and hides his parts with extreme diligence, and the next he’s stripped down and imitating a double-jointed acrobat complete with legs behind his head. He goes from yelling at everyone to close their eyes as he streaks past to giggling when I shriek at him to “put it away”… you just never know what to expect – the prude or the exhibitionist.
Oh, and it’s not as if this respect for someone’s privacy is a 2-way street. Apparently my closed bedroom door is an open invitation for the troops to file in as I hurriedly yank on a bra. And I don’t remember the last time I had a solitary minute in the bathroom without someone either strolling in or (if I’m lucky) banging on the door…
One thing’s for sure – the next time Ben gets the urge to do a little song & dance in his birthday suit, I’ll take him up on the videotape suggestion. If nothing else, it’ll be great blackmail material when he hits the teen years….and a really great way to bond with that first girlfriend…
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