Addison's nakedness (or "nudee!" as she now likes to exclaim it) has generally been acceptable in our household (much to the older generation's chagrine). I mean, that's how God gave her to us, unless you want to pick nits and say that while in utero she was kind of wearing her mom's body like a massive suit of clothes and . . . alright, so that's kinda creepy. And kinda true. I''ll try to explain: clothing is to keep you warm, protect you from the outside world, feed you through your bellybutton . . . (my wife may demand that I delete this paragraph).
Anyway, we've always felt pretty normal about Addison running around in her birthday suit. Exhibit #1:
And just for the fun of it, there's this:
I don't know where Addison learned to "assume the position," but I swear it had nothing to do with Lindsay or me. We'd say, "time to wipe," and she'd scramble to do what you see above.
And this is what we do during potty time now, a swan dive into the sink (she's just a little too short to wash her hands by herself):
Addison even used to garden with me, and why keep her in a diaper when she can be free, freeeeeee . . .
Every once in a while, when it was that time, she'd wander over to a bare spot of earth, and mark it as her own. And she'd wander back, and help me to dig some more (it was her great-grandma's garden, who never needs to know).
More recently, though, Addison has been learning her body parts. She knows where her "bump" is, and now, where her "gyna" is. The other day she walked over to her gramps and told him where his bump and gyna were too, something I don't think he was too excited about. She was just trying to be helpful.
Since I'm with Addison at least half the day starting in the morning, I've gotten used to bathing us both at the same time. For awhile, that didn't present any particular difficulties, other than that she started out as kind of a limp rag:
She supports her own head now, thank goodness. But now she's getting a little older, and starting to figure things out. The other day in the shower, I glanced at her and she was looking at me a little too closely, a little too curiously . . .
And so we had to have a talk about how mama and daddy are different, a talk that I hadn't intended to have for a while. But, she called it a "poopy," so I didn't really have a lot of choice. I had to nip things in the bud and have a little serious discussion about how what daddy has is definitely NOT a permanent dangling "poopy." And we talked about things that are private, and how she's in charge of her own body, but she can ask mama and daddy for help if she needs it . . . I have this wistful wish that the conversation could have waited until she was leaving home, like, along with her graduation present:
"Oh, we thought you should know since you're going out into the world, you're going to encounter some things that have never, EVER crossed your mind before . . . "I can see the limits of my comfort zone. I haven't smashed into them yet, but they're there, oh yes, they're there. For a moment, I admit that I even thought, alright, this is where the women's work starts. Maybe I should just go out and work on the yard and tell Lindsay this is her territory. It's a common perception, right? That men just shouldn't be trusted to deal with a kid's body issues? But then I grew a pair (haven't pointed those out to Addison yet, thank goodness) and decided that you don't get to just turn off being a parent; you don't refuse your kids' questions and you don't submarine learning opportunities. So I guess I'm just going to have to grow up a little with her, not freak her out with my own fumbling daddy growing pains, and help her, step by baby step, to enter the big, wide world. Which means Lindsay and I need to have another round of parenting talks (where did our tiny little baby go!?). And also that I may have to stop bathing myself. Sorry folks.
*I was inspired to write this by a post that I read over on Dadcentric, a dad blog I've been exploring a bit. And some of what I wrote here started in the comments to that post.*