still blushing

There are a lot of things that women who’ve had babies don’t always share with those who haven’t. It really isn’t until you get pregnant that all these mommies seem to surface and are like “oh hey, most woman crap themselves during labor” or “I would be more worried about tearing.”  And someone should definitely tell you that a quick trip to the store will suddenly take elaborate planning and probably an afternoon in its entirety.  Also that you’ll spend a lot of time in fast food drive-thru’s ordering only a diet coke because you’re much too lazy to haul that heavy-ass car seat in the gas station to get your own.. These nuggets of knowledge should be made into PSA’s and aired during any and all afternoon television programming aimed at preteens and teenagers, ESPECIALLY the one about pooping with a minimum audience of four.  Watch those teen pregnancy rates drop faster than your postpartum boobies.

Here’s one for you that I had to find out on my own, no thanks to all those motorboat mouth moms out there.  Ready for it; baby boys get erections.  There I said it, someone had to; it’s high time I made everyone here as uncomfortable as I was when I called our health insurance company’s nurse hotline in the wee hours of the morning.  As a grown woman you would think I could muster up the courage to use clinical terms such as penis and erection when describing what I thought might be a life-threatening condition, but no, I used the word “dingy” (rhymes with Chingy, master of such rap hits as Right Thurr and Holidae Inn) and “all hard and stuff.”  This was only after I called and lost my nerve, hanging up, not once, but twice. Knowing that I sounded like an idiot, I tried assuring the nurse on the other end that while I was an excellent prank caller at one point in my life, this was not an episode of John Quinones’ What Would You Do? and to please not hang up on me.  I’m ashamed to say I’m pretty sure I quoted parts of Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now.

Somewhere between calling my son’s penis a nickname that is also slang for a life boat and crooning “It’s quarter after one, I’m all alone and I need you now” the nurse informed me that his “condition” (as I kept calling it) was completely normal. Something about increased blood flow and a properly functioning nervous system. Well there’s a relief; now I just have to worry about him trying to grab his junk during diaper changes and getting poop all over his hands; hands that will inevitably go straight into his mouth. I’m here to confirm that the fascination men have with their own genitals starts at an alarmingly young age.  According to some studies/google searches, the next step is an increased interest in comparing their own genitals with that of another male’s genitals.  Fantastic. Really looking forward to that. Can't. Wait. 

Also, I did attempt to get a copy of the actual telephone recording but the woman on the other end was less than pleased telling me “this hotline is not a joke” and something about demanding respect. I’m pretty sure they’ve now blocked my number and I’m guessing the legal order to adhere to a restraining order is in the mail. Probably safer that I just turn to WebMd, much less judgmental.