Last night I dressed my 10-month-old in Star Wars pajamas and set him in a little kid chair, and I snapped a picture of him, because he was so happy and it was so stinking cute. And then I posted the picture on my social media sites today, because, like I said, it was cute, and everybody loves cute photos of babies,and sometimes all we need to feel like we’re on top of a Monday is to see the smiling face of a happy baby. But all was not as it should have been.
I did not check the picture for surprise appendages. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten so used to ignoring the naked parts that go flying around my house. I live with a tribe of boys, after all, who would, hands down, prefer no clothes to clothes any hour of any day. After so much of all that nakedness, you just become immune to it.
Another boy mom noticed and sent me a message saying I had an unintended addition in the corner of the picture. So I took it down, cropped it and put it back up. Because it really was a great picture.
(This is the cropped version. See? Doesn’t that just make you want to smile?)
It probably goes without saying that I cannot “just snap” a picture in my home, because there is always a little boy running straight out of the bathroom without the pants he had on two seconds ago. I can’t “just take” a quick video of my boys dancing to “Whip It Nae Nae,” because one of them will get too hot and strip down to nothing but his birthday suit. I can’t just open the door to see who rang the bell, because it’s guaranteed that someone will peek around the corner, even though I told him to stay in his seat, showing more parts than he should.
Lately we’ve been the hub of the neighborhood. Kids just like to come to our house, because we’re super cool parents. Actually, it’s more likely because we have a trampoline in our backyard and a swing set and we let the kids be unless someone is dying. But this becoming a hub also means that at all hours of the day we have kids knocking on our door, asking to play.
On Saturday, I opened the door to find a little curly-haired girl. “I came over to play,” she said, walking right in before I could stop her. Problem is, we’d just gotten up, and when boys have just gotten up, there’s no guarantee that they are dressed in anything at all, because there is some sort of clothes bandit that keeps stealing into our house and stealing out of it with the pajamas they were wearing when we kissed them goodnight. I couldn’t be sure what exactly the situation was as I peered from the living room into the kitchen, because they were all wrapped in their blankets, since it was a cold morning. But then the 9-year-old stood up to go to the bathroom, dropping the wrapped-around-him blanket, and all he had on was fluorescent green boxers. At least he had something on, I guess.
But that little girl saw more than she probably should have. (Well. You probably shouldn’t ring our doorbell at 7 a.m. on a Saturday. So. Lesson learned. Hopefully.)
Will I ever get to a place where I can “just snap” a picture or “just take a quick video” and “just answer the door?” I don’t know. I do know that I have had to put some rules in place that I never, ever thought I would have to put in place back before I became a boy mom.
They sound a little like this:
Anyone who doesn’t at least have underwear at the table doesn’t get any food.
No, you may not got outside in your underwear (even in the fenced backyard).
Do not dance naked through the living room.
Because, you know, sometimes people knock on the door, and they don’t want to see your pride and joy. And sometimes people are out mowing their lawn while you’re jumping on the trampoline in your Captain America butt huggers, and they don’t want to see an accidental slip. And sometimes we forget to close the blinds, and people don’t want to see a streaker when they’ve only just woken up.
And, more importantly, sometimes Mama just wants to take a picture. For the love, go put on some underpants.
