Sunday, August 10, 2008

But I wiped your butt..

As soon as you have a baby you start understanding your parents more than you ever could otherwise. My mom must have stayed up with me all night long, just like I've had to do with Mason. I probably threw up on her. She wiped my butt. Honestly, I've never really thought about it before. I guess I pictured my mom giving birth to a fully funtioning, self-sufficient 10 year old child.

That was always my mom's line. The butt-wiping thing. When I was 12 and started being all modest and not wanting my mom to be in the room when I was changing she'd bust out her line: "I've seen you naked already, I used to wipe your butt". Or when I wanted to spend the night at a friend's house or eat ice cream for dinner: "Stop bothering me, I wiped your butt". I guess I just laughed. I didn't realize all that the "butt-wiping" entailed. I didn't know about the lack of sleep and the poop and the throw up. Ugh. The throw up.

I'm sure I'll probably use the same kind of logic with Mason some day. He clearly should always listen to what I say because I stayed up all night and did this or that or the other thing for him. So when I say no tattoos, he'd better not come home with one. I have three... and only now do I understand why my parents said, "please don't get a tattoo". It's because they took care of my perfect little baby skin. They put diaper rash cream on me and they cried when they cut my finger with the nail clippers. But Mason will probably get a tattoo anyway. By the time he's old enough, they'll be piercing their who-knows-whats. And he won't understand why I said no until he has a baby.


And so on..

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