Rejected by Havre Daily News as "Yellow Journalism".
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Peeing in a Cup
We’ve all had to do it at one time or another in our life—pee in a cup. For many of us women this ordeal likely started with pregnancy. For you men, perhaps the inconvenience began when you entered military service or later in life, to check the health of your prostate. The doctor or nurse handed you a miniature alcohol towelette, of dubious value, along with a tiny paper or plastic cup and sent you into the sanctuary of a miniscule cubicle with directions to void. I will not burden you with further details.
So that’s how this tribulation began for most of us—in the doctor’s office. Not so for my four year old granddaughter Annie. She hatched the idea on her own. Had she been eight, she would have flushed the evidence. Instead, her mother found a teacup sitting on the dresser, full of pee.
“What’s this?” Mom asked.
I rolled my eyes. I don’t know why she asked that question when she already knew the answer. It is a well-known fact of child psychology that by age four all children answer redundant questions with either “I don’t know” or “I didn’t do it.”
“I don’t know,” Annie answered.
“Why did you pee in the cup?” Mom continued. Dumb-mother-question number two.
“I didn’t do it.”
The next day Mom found a cereal bowl filled with pee on the kitchen counter. Same questions. Identical responses.
The following day Mom found Annie out in the yard, panties hobbled around her ankles, arching her back and aiming an uncertain stream in the general direction of an azalea bush.
Her mom asked me what to do since Grandmas are well-known repositories of wisdom.
Once I wiped tears of laughter from my face, I responded. “Annie is in daycare with two boys her age, right. I’m sure she has seen them do it. She is probably just trying to figure out where it comes from and how it works. If she can figure out how the boys pee, then she can figure out how she pees. Boys’ plumbing fixtures are so much more visible, easier to understand. Shoot, she might have been in a panic about hers. It is healthy scientific experimentation. Ignore it.”
“But why in a teacup?”
“Why not? It was probably in the dish drainer, easy to grab. What about her father—does he ever go out on the deck at night and . . .”
“Mom!”
“Hey, I’m sure he does; it’s a man thing. They all have this universal urge to whizz outdoors. It’s probably a residual need of the male animal to mark his territory. I wonder if she has seen him. You know, every little girl wants to be just like her Dad.”
“I shudder to think,” my daughter said.
“You’ve got to think about these things. I just got this mental picture of Annie peeing off the deck when she’s sixteen, wobbling in high heels, prom formal hiked up around her waist.”
“Mom, mind your mouth.”
“Oh, Honey. Annie is in an exploration phase. I guarantee it won’t last long. Unless, of course, Freud was right.”
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
http:montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com
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Showing posts with label child development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label child development. Show all posts
Friday, February 19, 2010
Our Bodies, Ourselves
Educating Grandma
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While visiting my daughter, I asked, “Have you begun teaching Jean Marie the facts of life yet?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mom. She’s only seven.”
“Today children are older much younger,” I replied. “Besides, this one is precocious beyond her years. You cannot start giving her information too soon.”
Based on the look my daughter shot at me as she rolled her eyes, I decided to take on the educational project myself. One of my granddaughter’s favorite things is to have tea with her Grandma in real china cups with sugar cubes and real cream and with special little tea cookies I make just for her. I poured the tea and we creamed and sugared and put cookies on our saucers. “So, Jean Marie, let’s talk about our bodies.”
“Okay, Gram. What do you need to know?”
This set me back on my heels. It was not an auspicious beginning.
“Actually, Grandma, I’ve been thinking a lot about my body. Like, what keeps the skin on our arms and legs? If we didn’t have the skin, would our arms and legs and bellies and backs just go flinging off into space? So what makes the skin stay in place? It’s awfully thin, you know. And who puts the blood inside us. And how do they get it there. And what if I cut myself and I bleeded it all out? We gotta think about these things, Grandma. And what really happens to our food. Oh, I know what people say, Grandma, but really! I want the real answers, not the make-believe ones. I am a big girl now and I can handle it.”
“Well,” I stalled. This session was not going well at all and was much different from what I had in mind.
“Grandma, why do you hear your heart beat only at night when you can’t sleep and you don’t ever hear it during the daytime?”
Finally, a question I can respond to. “When you can’t sleep at night, Jean Marie, are you worried about the monsters under your bed?”
“Don’t be such a silly, Gram,” she giggled. “There are no bed monsters. Are there monsters under your bed, Grandma?” She found this inordinately funny.
“Never mind,” I said. “Have another cookie.”
“No thanks. Mom is making my favorite lasagna for dinner. Mmmmm.” Jean Marie snuggled into my lap and put her hands on my face. “Grandma, why do you have that long white hair on your chin? Would you like me to help you pull it out? Do you have that little silver puller thing? How did that white hair get there and what makes it so long? It really looks funny, Grandma.”
My effort at education was an abject failure. I needed to retrench. I’ll try again next week. Or maybe next year. Or maybe just leave it to my daughter, who is a family counselor. It’s not my fault she waited too late.
“Grandma, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or nothing,” Jean Marie scrunched up her face and looked me over critically, “but you probably should quit wearing your bikini. Besides, bikinis are sooooo out of fashion. Let’s go shopping together and I can help you find yourself a cute one piece. I’ll help you pick it out.”
“Jean Marie,’ I said, making one last attempt, “next time would you like to talk about boys.”
“Sure, Grandma, anything you need to know, you can ask me. And I promise not to tell Mom.”
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While visiting my daughter, I asked, “Have you begun teaching Jean Marie the facts of life yet?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mom. She’s only seven.”
“Today children are older much younger,” I replied. “Besides, this one is precocious beyond her years. You cannot start giving her information too soon.”
Based on the look my daughter shot at me as she rolled her eyes, I decided to take on the educational project myself. One of my granddaughter’s favorite things is to have tea with her Grandma in real china cups with sugar cubes and real cream and with special little tea cookies I make just for her. I poured the tea and we creamed and sugared and put cookies on our saucers. “So, Jean Marie, let’s talk about our bodies.”
“Okay, Gram. What do you need to know?”
This set me back on my heels. It was not an auspicious beginning.
“Actually, Grandma, I’ve been thinking a lot about my body. Like, what keeps the skin on our arms and legs? If we didn’t have the skin, would our arms and legs and bellies and backs just go flinging off into space? So what makes the skin stay in place? It’s awfully thin, you know. And who puts the blood inside us. And how do they get it there. And what if I cut myself and I bleeded it all out? We gotta think about these things, Grandma. And what really happens to our food. Oh, I know what people say, Grandma, but really! I want the real answers, not the make-believe ones. I am a big girl now and I can handle it.”
“Well,” I stalled. This session was not going well at all and was much different from what I had in mind.
“Grandma, why do you hear your heart beat only at night when you can’t sleep and you don’t ever hear it during the daytime?”
Finally, a question I can respond to. “When you can’t sleep at night, Jean Marie, are you worried about the monsters under your bed?”
“Don’t be such a silly, Gram,” she giggled. “There are no bed monsters. Are there monsters under your bed, Grandma?” She found this inordinately funny.
“Never mind,” I said. “Have another cookie.”
“No thanks. Mom is making my favorite lasagna for dinner. Mmmmm.” Jean Marie snuggled into my lap and put her hands on my face. “Grandma, why do you have that long white hair on your chin? Would you like me to help you pull it out? Do you have that little silver puller thing? How did that white hair get there and what makes it so long? It really looks funny, Grandma.”
My effort at education was an abject failure. I needed to retrench. I’ll try again next week. Or maybe next year. Or maybe just leave it to my daughter, who is a family counselor. It’s not my fault she waited too late.
“Grandma, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or nothing,” Jean Marie scrunched up her face and looked me over critically, “but you probably should quit wearing your bikini. Besides, bikinis are sooooo out of fashion. Let’s go shopping together and I can help you find yourself a cute one piece. I’ll help you pick it out.”
“Jean Marie,’ I said, making one last attempt, “next time would you like to talk about boys.”
“Sure, Grandma, anything you need to know, you can ask me. And I promise not to tell Mom.”
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