Holding it

I suppose Ben will probably be forever traumatized because I talked about his penis online, but honestly — Houston, we have a problem.

When Ben was born — no, before Ben was born — we knew he was a boy. Thus, we had to decide whether or not to circumcize him. My family was a wealth of opinions on the matter, of course, so I took the easy way out. I let Marti decide.

Marti decided no circumcision. I don’t know why. He just didn’t want to. And I didn’t like the idea of any part of my perfect, new-born baby boy getting cut off, for whatever reason. Too much like cutting off puppies tails and ears when they are born to suit my comfort level.

I have never regretted that decision until now. I mean, so his penis looked a little different from daddy’s and from the boys at school. It was a natural, normal-looking penis. A penis the way nature made a penis. That is, until the “evil shot-doctor.” (Ben’s name for our pediatrician).

I love my pediatrician. She is absolutely wonderful. But, when Ben was about two years old, she informed me that we should start pulling the foreskin back on Ben’s penis whenever he took a bath (so much for the “all natural, the way nature made it” thing). Well, Ben bathes every day. She suggested daddy do it. Guess what? Daddy worked and was in school, so I nodded and smiled, but in my heart I knew this was not going to happen. I really didn’t feel like traumatizing my son by violating his penis each and every day. How was I to explain that penises were private things when I had to maul it daily? Having daddy do it, even if he was there for every bath time, was not my idea of a good solution. This is how things begin and then suddenly they’re eight years old and there’s a Catholic priest — you know what I mean. Mixed messages. However, the doctor told me it had to be done or he would need to be circumcised now, when it would hurt a lot more, so I tried it a couple of times, but Ben thought it tickled and I felt completely mortified. Uh-uh. Not happening.

Fast forward to last week and Ben’s 4-year checkup. I had to work so Marti took him, and apparently the past two years of penis-neglect have had an effect: his foreskin is too tight, whatever that means. Ben had just gotten shots the week before and Marti made the mistake of telling him on Wednesday that he would get two more shots on Friday, which for a 4-year-old with a loose understanding of time meant that he spent two entire days stressing about those shots (and we spent two days hearing about it every 5 minutes). He finally went in for the shots and for the miraculous hearing test and the spectacular eye test but just when he thought his torment was over he failed the penis test.

What we did not have the courage to do, the evil shot-doctor did. She pulled back his foreskin all the way and although I wasn’t there I got the harrowing details when I got home. This apparently hurt like hell, because Ben’s penis was red and inflamed and he subsequently refused to pee for the next 6 hours.

Finally he just peed on the floor. My son, who has been potty-trained for two years. This was very upsetting for him, but he got cleaned up and seemed fine.

Then, we went to a friend’s house for a barbecue. A friend with a very, very nice house on a hill with a bank of windows overlooking the city. With furniture more expensive than my car. And Ben, who loves going (there is a pool and a foosball table) peed on the floor. Again.

Well, we cleaned Ben up and luckily had brought extra clothes, but two hours later he was jumping on our host’s bed, who was attacking him with pillows, and I envisioned a real disaster: Ben peeing on the bed. I suggested I take him to go potty, and our host readily agreed.

Twenty minutes of screaming later (Ben screamed too) Marti came in to ask if he could help. (Actually, I didn’t scream, I patiently explained multiple times. In a relatively quiet voice). Marti told me to leave, that he could handle it. Well, we could hear Ben shouting, sobbing and protesting in general for the next 10 minutes or so despite the fact that it was a party. *note to those with their finger on the CPS hotline: all we did was make him sit on the potty. We asked him to try. That’s all, nothing more. He was just extremely upset that his penis hurt.* I have always hated hearing Ben cry and it was making me feel a little desperate. I went back in. Marti told me to leave again. Finally, after another 10 minutes, making 40 minutes of crying, we gave up. Neither of us wanted to give up, but there is a limit, and we had reached it. We said good-bye to our friends, left the party, and about 2 minutes after we left Ben passed out from exhaustion in the back seat.

Back home, Marti did put him on the toilet for a few more minutes, but the poor kid was falling asleep and I’d had enough. We put a diaper on him and slipped him into his bed. He hardly moved a muscle. It had been a rough day, and he’d had to give up foosball and swimming at T.’s house. Very traumatic.

The next morning we went to the zoo for their annual Easter egg hunt, something Ben had been looking forward to for a couple of weeks. He was still wearing the diaper, and I decided I really didn’t care if anyone noticed my extremely tall 4-year-old wearing a diaper, I just wanted him to pee. He hadn’t since his accident at 8:30 p.m. the night before — the diaper was dry.

Ben made it through the hunt, although he didn’t want to walk because “his tummy hurt” (holding it for 14 hours can do that to a person). I left for work and Marti took him home, and at 10:30 a.m. that morning I got a phone call: Ben had finally agreed to go potty. I was so relieved. I’m sure Ben was, too.

They agreed to meet me for lunch at Chipotle, and I was paying for my burrito when a small missile threw himself at me, shouting “I peed, mama! I peed!” Some might have been embarrassed, but you know you’ve truly become a mother when you say, “Yay!!! You peed!!!” and you do a victory dance in public.

Which is precisely what I did.