The Day I Knew This Mothering Thing Wasn't Gonna be as Easy as I Thought

John was a talker really early on. By the time he was eighteen months old, he had built up quite a little vocabulary and by the time he was two he had started to put together sentences. Of course, I wasn't really around any other children at that time and didn't have any perspective on his language developement compared to any other babies his age.

And I was a first time mother, so I listened to all the advice I could get. And if nobody was talking, then I was watching advice on t.v. or I was reading advice in a book. Somewhere along the advice trail I picked up the advice about calling private body parts by their true names rather than cutsie names like weenie and willie and so forth. This advice was hard for me to take, first because I came from a family of no-talkers. If it was important, we didn't talk about it. If it was serious, forget about it. If it was emotional, run for the hills! And if it was sexual, pretend there is no such thing. When I turned twelve or thirteen my mom came into my room and handed me four red books about the Life Cycle and said "Here, I want you to read these books and let me know if you have any questions." Well I pretended like I didn't know what she was talking about, I'd actually already read the books over at Sherry McGoverns house. Then I said "You can set them over there, but I'm probably not gonna read em." "Okay," she said, "but if you do, and you have any questions, let me know." "Okay, but I'm not going to, and I won't." And that was the sum of all my sex education.

So I decided to bite the bullet and when John was a baby and we got to naming parts, hands, fingers, nose, ears, eyes, and yes penis. I had to practice saying it when no one was around, because for me, it wasn't easy, not even almost. But I perservered and all these words found there way into his vocabulary, but rarely did we have the chance to discuss it, outside diaper changes and bathtime.

One day we went shopping for a Glider rocker, I was pregnant with Melee', and John was about two and a half. Back in the day, all the possible shopping places were more like furniture stores, they didn't have the SUPERWALLY or SUPERTARGET or SAM's complete with baskets in which to secure your curious toddler. Which meant that each time we went to check out a rocker, we would have to schlep into a store and chase John around the store while trying to locate and price rockers. After about the third store, I'd reached my limit of toddler chasing fun for the day, seeing as I was pregnant and cranky. So when we got to Best Furniture I told him that I was going to hold him while we were in this store and he couldn't get down and run. He was not a happy camper. I was determined however, and knew that if I passed him over to his Dad, his Dad would let him down and we'd have to scurry through the store digging him out from behind lamps and coffee tables. We went in and he was whining and complaining and I was ignoring. He was wiggling and trying to get down and I was switching him from hip to hip. After about the third wrestling move, I clutched him close, leaned into his ear and said " I'm NOT putting you down, be STILL." I walked toward one of the clerks to ask if he could direct us to the glider rockers as John yelled "OOOOWWW! YOU'RE HURTING MY PENIS!"

I think we bought the rocker that day, I don't really remember many of the details after that. But I knew from that day on, that advice my friends, is all relative. And my relatives call it a "pointer". Try screaming that in the middle of a crowded store. I double dog dare you.