Tag Archives: underwear

Rather Have a Wedgie

“…and there I was, walking around the store, not wearing any underwear.”

That was the line, verbatim.  Yep, she said she was not wearing underwear in the store.  Hmmm…was she wearing underwear now?  Did she ever wear underwear?  Did I really want to know?

I don’t know this lady’s name.  Presumably she has a child in the same school as my daughter.  I was walking on the sidewalk in front of the school with my two boys, on our way to pick up their sister.  I passed this lady as she was going the other way with another woman and a few kids.  As she walked past, I heard her say sotto voce to her friend, well, you know.  No “chones”.  

If I knew her at all, I would have certainly asked her why she wasn’t wearing underwear, oh, and what store was this?  But even I don’t have the audacity to ask a complete stranger why she wasn’t wearing any pantsy poos in the store, especially when the remark wasn’t addressed to me, and I really shouldn’t even know she wasn’t wearing any.  But still, I did wonder…

Maybe it went something like this:

They were going to be late for school again!  Dripping from the shower, a threadbare towel covering what it must, she checks on her kids and realizes they are doing what they do every morning: nothing.

“Johnny, get your bunky out of bed now!  You are going to be late!  Don’t make me come in after you, mister!”

“Suzie, stop playing with your breakfast and get dressed!”

“Geez, Mom, you’re not dressed,” Suzie observes.

“Don’t you backtalk me, Miss Smarty Pants!  Go put your clothes on!” 

Sheesh!  Why does every morning have to be such an ordeal?  She hurries into her room to get dressed, and rummages through her underwear drawer.  “Oh, great!  I don’t even have any clean underwear!  Well, there’s no time to wash any now, I’ll just have to go au naturel.”  So she tugs on a pair of lightweight knit capri pants and a t-shirt, stuffs her feet into sneakers, and runs out to shift her kids into second gear.

She has to hover over Suzie to make sure the little girl’s engine doesn’t stall getting dressed.  “You’ll just have to wear the pink shirt, the blue one is dirty.  Along with everything else.”  Good grief, why is it that she can do four loads of laundry every day, but nothing is ever clean? 

“Put your homework in your backpack.  Come on, move!”

“OK, Johnny, where are your shoes?  Did you brush?  Oooh, don’t pick your nose! Oh, man, especially don’t eat it!  Well, that’s going to have to be breakfast, buddy, because we are late!”

She tosses the kids into the family van, and heads off to school.  At the designated “unloading zone” in front of the school, she hits the button that automatically slides open those smooth van doors, and tells her little darlin’s,  “Get out!”

“Mom, we forgot to get juice boxes!  You’re supposed to bring juice boxes for the class party today, remember?”

“OK, OK, don’t panic.  The party isn’t supposed to start until 10.  I’ll go to Target and I’ll have them to your class in plenty of time, OK?  Now go!” (Actually, except for the underwear part, up to this point it sounds more like my day.)

Well, no time to go home and fix the lingerie problem now.  Besides, she needs laundry soap anyway, so she’ll just get that too while she’s at Target.  Heading the other direction, she arrives at her favorite big box store.  Parks, grabs her purse, jumps out, clicks the little button on her key ring that magically makes the mobile rectangle lock up tight, and trips into Target.  Gosh, maybe there is time to just look at those v-neck sleeveless sweaters that were in the Sunday ad.  She ambles across the store to the ladies clothing section.   Is it her imagination, or is she getting some odd looks?  No, that woman definitely sneered.  Well, she has lost a little weight lately.  Probably just jealous.  Women can be so catty. 

In the ladies department she finds the sale sweaters.  Hmm…blue would go best with her bleached hair, but red is so… saucy!  She selects a red sweater in a small, OK, better get the medium, who is she kidding, and heads to a mirror where she holds it up to herself.  Oooh, red is nice! Especially with these white capris she’s wearing.  Hold on there a minute.  Is that…oh, no.  These pants are see-through! 

Well, that explains a lot!  She holds the sweater strategically, gets a cart, pushes it in front of her, walking very, very close to the cart.  She pinches her cheeks together tightly (you know which cheeks I mean), hoping it will make her booty smaller and her pants hang a little more loosely from the rear view.  She can’t leave without those stupid juice boxes, so taking very quick small little steps so she doesn’t have to put much space between her body and the cart or unclench her cheeks, she goes to the food section and throws a few 10-packs of Capri Sun in the cart.  She usually gets the 100% juice stuff for her own kids, but this is cheaper, and heck, she’s not going to pay a fortune to hydrate someone else’s kid!  Doing the same sort of geisha walk, she hurries to get laundry soap so she can take care of her little problem sometime today, and heads to the checkout. 

The checker looks at her oddly as she obsessively hugs the cart, but hey, he thinks, whatever floats your boat, lady.  She makes it to the car, throws her bags in the back, and thankfully heads home where she will have just enough time to put on some very dark, very loose pants, and deliver the juice boxes. 

Well, it could have happened that way.  I imagined a few other scenarios as well, but I like the G rated version best.  She didn’t look like she had many public R (or worse) moments.  Maybe a few PG-13.  But if I ever see her again, I’m going to have a hard time looking her in the face, ya know what I mean?

That’s a Crock!

There is a renowned child psychologist or some such “ist” who writes a syndicated column carried by our local newspaper.  I cannot remember his name, which is just as well since I am about to misquote him dreadfully, but I do know he has written several books and is considered an expert.  His picture printed just above his column must have been taken the day his hemorrhoids flared, or right after he took a sip of vending machine coffee.  He has the sourest look on his face.  He looks like someone more likely to abuse your children than counsel them.  Supposedly he has grown children, all psychologically whole, and productive citizens, but that is by his account.  I have no proof of this.  I have never seen him pictured with any sour faced children purported to be his offspring.   

Even though I seldom agree with him, I do read his column from time to time just so I can roll my eyes and say, “Yeah, right.  Like that would work with my kids!”.  Of course, I am not an expert.  I would not even say I am an expert with my own children.  I am just a regular mom doing her best to raise her children well.  But here is the point of this little tirade.  Potty training.  I am on my third and last (I believe) episode of potty training.  The Expert believes we have become a nation of potty training wimps.  Apparently children were potty trained at a much younger age when our parents were in diapers.  The secret, he maintains, is to let your child go without a diaper for a week.  Then when he messes you can put him on the potty.  After no more than a week the little darling will understand and start using the potty.  There is probably more to it than this, but that is the skeletal version. 

OK, well when my parents were in nappies they didn’t have any kind of stay dry lining, so maybe he has a point there.  Grandma probably got really tired of Cloroxing all those smellies and was very motivated to move on to toilet training.  But in regards to Dr. Expert’s method, I do not think a week of having poop and pee on my sofa is going to do Mommy any good psychologically.  And our grandmothers were home all day.  They didn’t have to worry about baby pooping in the minivan, or peeing in the dance studio while big sister practiced plies. My bigger objection, however, is that I have learned something important from my first two children.  They control their own bladder and bowels.  Yes, that is shocking news, isn’t it?  They themselves have the ultimate control over when they poop and pee, and where.  

When my daughter was little, I tried just about every version of potty training, beginning at an optimistic 18 months.  She understood.  She didn’t care.  She didn’t want to use the potty.  Messy pants?  OK.  Pee on the rug?  OK.  Whatever.  I didn’t give up, but I made no progress.  The pediatrician told me not to worry, just keep sitting her on the potty, and when she was ready, she would be “trained” rapidly.  At about 2 ½ years of age, just as I feared she would wear diapers walking down the aisle, I tempted her with pretty “big girl panties”.  I explained that she had to use the potty to wear these, and that if she went poo or pee in her panties, I would throw them in the garbage.  She really wanted to wear them.  The first day she pooped big time in her pants.  She watched me throw them away.  That was the last accident we had. 

Wow!  It doesn’t happen young, but I had the answer!  Then my son came along.  I went down the same path.  I familiarized him with the potty.  If he should happen to let something loose while sitting, I would praise him loftily.  Still, he really had no interest in getting to the potty whenever the urge to go hit him.  I tried big boy pants.  I explained just as I had to my daughter that the dinosaur underwear would go in the garbage if he went poo in his pants instead of the potty. 

The first day he did a huge doo.  I made a big show of throwing them away.  I put on another pair.  

He did another doo.  I made a big show of throwing them away.  I put on another pair.  

He peed.  He took them off and threw them away himself.  Then he went to his drawer and told me I needed to buy some more. 

When I told him “No more, you will have to wear a diaper if you won’t use the potty,” he just looked at me and said, “OK, dyepah.”  He was almost three years old when he decided on his own that he liked the potty after all, and overnight he was “trained”.  

Now I am working on my youngest son.  He will be three in March, but he is much more “babyish” than the other two were at this age.  Still, I have been going through the routine.  Oh, he gets it.  He just doesn’t want to.  Last night before bath time, I had him on the potty.  “Go pee pee!” I encouraged.  “Just like Jackie and Julia, go pee in the potty!”  He grinned happily, pointed down between his legs to the water and cried “Pee pee!”  Except he hadn’t done anything.  Eventually I put him in the bath.  He stood there proudly and said “Mommy, wah dee!” (“Watch this!”).  He then proceeded to grab his penis and direct a spray of urine across the tub, laughing the whole time.  

Recently he has decided he does not like any poo or pee in his diaper at all, which I take as a good sign.  Before he could swish around in it all day and not care.  The down side is that he keeps taking off his own diaper and handing it to me.  Today he marched up to me naked and handed me a diaper full of chocolate nuggets. 

Uh oh.   “I’ll bet some escaped!” I thought. 

Sure enough, as I retraced his steps he had left a doo doo nugget trail, like Hansel and Gretel in the forest. 

“Jerry, help!  Jamie spilled nuggets!” 

My husband ran to assist as I quickly secured and swabbed the poopetrator.  

“Wait, you missed one!”  I said, pointing at a Hershey’s kiss size brown ball of poop, camouflaged well in the multi-colored runner of the hallway. 

“Move, move!” he shouted.  “You’re on one!  No, not there, you’re smooshing it into the carpet!” 

Just now as I am writing this Jamie handed me another loaded one.  Fortunately this one appears to be fully intact.  But what now?  Teach him how to put on a clean diapie himself?  That would be helpful.  I am not stressed about this at all, despite the day’s poopisode.  After all, the first two taught me that they will go when they are ready, and not before.  I can go through the routine, but the timing is up to them.  They will respond to motivation, or will motivate themselves, when they are ready.  I’m not really sure how our grandmother’s did it.  I mean, bowel control is not new.  So maybe we really are a nation of potty training wimps.  Maybe we need to send our babies to potty training boot camp.  I don’t know.  I just know I am less stressed by letting the kids develop at their own pace, and it seems to suit them better, too.   

So Dr. Expert I-can-raise-your-kids-better-than-you-can will just have to shake his head in disgust at me, and continue to glare sour facedly at the world from his throne of newsprint superiority.  Wimpiness seems to work OK for our family, and we’re not going to doo it any other way.

Caught Un(der)aware

I love my kids.  I think they are each talented and bright.  But sometimes they do things that make me wonder if I am either a terrible parent who is twisting their little minds, or if they are just goofy.  I am often faced with situations I just don’t know what to do with.  Some serious, some humorous, all baffling just the same.  Things not found in books, never mentioned in anecdotes from family and friends. Subjects not covered in any of the 117 Brady Bunch episodes, and I’ve seen them all.  Time doesn’t seem to make it any easier, and I have no more answers with children two and three than I did with the first.

Everyday is trailblazing uncharted territory. 

Let me illustrate.  

Shortly before my daughter started kindergarten, I bought her some new underwear.  She has the cutest, roundest little tush, but her behind kept outgrowing her panties.  This time I bought them a size larger, hoping after allowing for shrinkage she would not outgrow them so quickly.  I guess I overestimated, because they were too big.   They bagged a little right where it counts, and were a bit loose around the legs.  Consequently, they tended to ride up and get stuck in the, uh, well, crack.  There’s no genteel way of saying it.  

Here’s where the story strays outside the lines.  She liked it.  She liked her panties all bunched up in her, um, well, between her buttocks.  So much so that if they slipped out, she would reach back and cram them back in.  This got to be quite embarrassing, at least for me.  If she was wearing leggings you could see this big bunch emerging from the top of her, uh, crevice.  And then there was the constant readjusting.  I explained to her that most people are concerned with keeping their panties out of that place.  However, after prompting, reasoning, and finally demanding got no results, I gave up.  It had gotten to the point where she would walk in backward circles around me to keep me from seeing her bum.  If I came into her room while she was changing, she would get this terrified, guilty look on her face and quickly sit down or cover her bottom.  

Geez, I wasn’t trying to traumatize the kid.  If she wanted a continual wedgie, it certainly wasn’t worth this much anxiety.  She could wear her panties any way she liked, but I let her know it would be nice if she would refrain from repacking in public.  

Then about two weeks into the new school year, I got a call from the kindergarten teacher. 

“I’m concerned about Julia.  I am wondering if she has some sort of medical condition.  She scratches her bottom a lot.” 

Oh, dear. 

“Uh, well let me explain,” I began.  “Actually, she’s not scratching.  I bought her some panties that were too large and rode up on her, and she decided she likes it that way.  So now whenever they start to slip out, she pushes them back in.” 

“Oh, uh, I, um, well, I see,” her teacher stumbled.  “Well, as long as there is no physical problem.” 

No, no.  No physical problem.  “Gosh, Miss Kindergarten Teacher, my five year old daughter is just jamming her panties up her divide.  Thanks for calling!”  Sheesh, write that one down in the book of Life’s Awkward Explanations.  

I told my psychiatrist uncle about Julia’s little obsession and the subsequent conversation with her teacher.  Perhaps he had some suggestions about how I could discourage this behavior, or could tell me if this was even worth worrying about.  He laughed so hard I thought he was going to turn blue.  “Get her some kindergarten thongs,” he gasped out between guffaws. 

Thankfully, Julia soon figured out for herself that people take note when you are constantly touching your butt.  She went back to normal panty wear on her own.  But you see what I mean, don’t you?  Oh, I was ready for booger eating.  I have no problem at all with decapitated Barbies, and I was pretty calm about impromptu safety scissor haircuts.  It’s the things they come up with that you’ve never heard of before that really make you doubt your gene pool.  

This was a lighthearted example, but I never realized before I had children that there would be so much uncertainty.  I didn’t realize there would be so many times when I just didn’t know if I was doing the right thing for my child, or not doing something I should be doing.  Maybe I yelled too much and this behavior was some outward exhibit of a ravaged psyche.  Maybe we didn’t spend enough one on one time, and this was a desperate cry for attention.  Maybe she’s just a goofy kid like a hundred other goofy kids.  But in the end (no pun intended), all I can do is whatever I think best, and do it with love.  I guess this and other interesting episodes are just part of the grand adventure of parenting.