My Giant New Penis

So, I’m sitting beside the tub, flipping through the New Yorker and supervising my three-year-old son’s nighttime bath. My son, a.k.a. “the boy,” is lying on his tummy blowing bubbles into the bubbly bath water and talking to himself. A normal evening so far.

Then he stands up with the biggest boner ever and says, “Mommy, can you fix my giant, new penis?” I’ve never seen a little boy boner before, and hope to be spared ever seeing it again, frankly. It’s not a thing I want to think about. Ever. He pushed at it, trying to flatten it out, looking at me for help.

The magazine flipped up to cover my face while I tried not to laugh. “That’s normal, Honey. It’ll go away in a while. Just ignore it.” What do I know about erections? I’ve never had one. Can you ignore it? It was obviously irritating him (not for long, my dear, I know that much).

So he goes back to playing with the bubbles and I try to get back into my article. Then I notice he’s sitting up and squeezing his little woody with both hands. “Don’t hurt your penis, Honey,” I say, hoping I’m not endangering his relationship with his pointy little pecker by saying “don’t.”

He looks up with a frown. “I’m squeezing the water out of it!” Oh. Hmm. “I don’t think you need to do that, Sweetie. It’ll go away eventually.” He looks at it disgustedly and shifts his bum.

“Can we go to the doctor? He’ll fix it and I’ll get a red lollipop!” Oh, Hell, no.

“No, Honey. We don’t need to go to the doctor. Just lie on your back and it’ll go away.” Please go away! Go away and let me read this article about Obama becoming President and not think about my little boy becoming a penis-wielding teenager. Not yet! Give me a few more years of little boy stuff. Cars and trucks and airplanes, oh, my! Go away big penis! Go away!

It went away. But it’ll be back. Hopefully, Daddy will be on bath duty next time and can talk about it a little more with him. Not that I’m shy about body parts around the kids, ‘cuz I’m not. Getting dressed is a family activity in our house.

But these kind of questions: What is it supposed to feel like? How long will it last? Should I be scared? What is normal? Well, I’m leaving them up to Daddy, who can speak from direct, personal experience. ‘nuff said.