A Birthday Lesson

My baby turns five today; and even though I have a six month-old sleeping soundly in the next room, I can't help but think of that little 5 year-old as "my baby". As I do with each child on every birthday, I've been reminiscing a lot, and doing a whole lot of "How did the time go so fast?" questioning. Somehow, his chubby little baby hands turned into hands that can swing a bat, roll out pizza dough, steer a bike, sweep the kitchen floor and yes, (I cringe to say it) even hit his brother from time to time. I've always thought it the sign of the end of baby and toddlerhood, when the five sweet dimples on the back of a child's hand are replaced by ruddy little knuckles. As I watched Connor dig in the sand today I noticed that the dimples on his hands have long since been replaced and he has become my little boy, no longer my baby. Though, if you ask him he'd wrinkle up his nose and tell you he's a big boy.

We celebrated Connor's birthday by taking him, his brother, and their two cousins to the beach. It was blistering hot and Husband and I were thrilled with the improvement in our boys' water confidence since we were last on the beach two years ago. Both of them had great success with the boogie boards; according to their cousin Chase, they were more successful than their dad! I spent a good amount of time trying to convince both Connor and Kirby that it is, in fact, okay to pee in the ocean. Neither one of them were quite sure whether or not to believe me. At one point, I even enlisted their older cousin asking him, " If you have to go to the bathroom when you're at the beach, where do you go?" Screwing up his face and giving me a look that clearly said "Duh!" he said, "The ocean!" The more I tried to convince them, the louder and more frantically Connor tried to piece the whole thing together:

"You mean I should just stand and pee into it?" he asked me.

"No, you don't actually pull your pants down, you just kind of pee while you're standing in the water," I said, realizing that the loooong walk to the bath house would probably be in my near future.

By this time, Connor's voice was at a fever pitch and the people around us were starting to check us out.

"You want me to pee in my pants?" Connor asked in utter disbelief.

I used my most hushed and urgent voice to explain to him that yes, you just pee straight through your pants right into the ocean and the water will wash it away. Appealing to his innermost quiet child (a child I'm not sure actually exists) I told him that everybody does it, but nobody talks about it because it just sounds nasty to talk about. Looking out at all of the people in the water, Connor's eyes got very wide as he asked me, "You mean all those people pee-d in the ocean?"

"Probably," I replied. "And if they say they haven't there's a 50/50 chance they're lying."

At about this time, Kirby strode toward us, threw down his boogie board, and announced that he had to go to the bathroom.

"Kirby!" Connor said in his very best soccer field yell. "Mom said we should just go pee in the ocean!".

It was a combination of the look of utter disgust on Kirby's face, and the fact that I realized how pathetic it was for a mother of boys to spend 10 whole minutes trying to convince them to pee in open water, when I just spent the last 5 years telling them not to pee anywhere besides the bathroom (we've all had our bushes watered by our little boys, haven't we?). I was beginning to sound like a desperate woman, so I steeled myself for the long walk across scalding hot sand, and said, "You know what, never mind. I'm sure one day you'll decide it's more convenient to pee in the ocean than to hike all the way to the bathroom. For now, I should be glad you two have such a strong urge to act civilized!"

"What's civilized mean Mom?"

"Never mind! Let's just go potty!"

And so it is that Connor's 5th birthday has apparently ushered in the dawn of a new age; an age of civility and manners. Perhaps even an age where there is never any pee outside the toilet? One can always dream!