Dropping Trou

Computer update...Little Dell is still not allowing me to retrieve pictures from my camera and going to the blue screen after being on for 15 minutes, so I'm typing this fast and hoping to get to Best Buy today.

I have always loved the expression "dropping trou."  The impulsive nature of wearing your pants around your ankles while you take an emergency pee....how college-like and fun is that?

Not so much anymore.  Joey has taken to "dropping trou" everywhere.  Without warning.  Like at the mall.  Last week, I herded my brood from JC Penney (I wish they carried their ultra-talls in-store) to The Children's Place (just realized Daniel was never EVER a size 6 and Jack has no shorts that will stay up on him).  As I was yelling at Daniel to slow down and Jack to hurry up, I noticed Joey had dropped his pants and was holding his pee-pee like a firehose.  My apologizes to the whole "call-body-parts-by-their-biological-names" crowd.  Can't do it.  Raised by a nurse and still can't do it.  I just like the sound of pee-pee better.

I quickly pulled Joey's pants up and whispered to him to not "get naked" when there are people around.  But this was not the first time.  Most parks by us do not have bathrooms.  So when you've got a newly-potty-trained boy (and let's be honest, boy moms, even not-so-newly-trained boys), you take advantage of the ability of boys to pee behind trees.  I know it's gross.  I know it's inappropriate.  I should walk them the several blocks home and risk "accidents."  It's just that by the time you get everyone safely across 2 Chicago streets on a 2-wheeler, a tricycle, and a scooter, the last thing you want to do is turn the snail parade around.  So we pee on trees.

Yet unlike the older boys who go find distant shrubs and faraway oaks to do their business, Joey will merrily ride down a slide, whip out his device, and run towards me with a big smile screaming:

"I need to water de FLOWERS, Mommy.  My pee is READY!"

As though he'd been marinating it.

"Shhhhh.  Joey.  SHUSH."

"Should I pee on de dandelions, Mommy, or dem purple flowers?"

I received several angry looks mostly from moms with only girls.  I'm not sure if it comes from a place of true disgust, or rather from jealously that I have children biologically programmed to save me a trip home.  I'm sure if I had all girls, I'd probably feel a little bit of both.

Instead, I will continue to work on implementing some proper decorum to the time-honored tradition of dropping trou.  When Joey's defense attorney calls me in 30 years wondering where he developed a lifelong pattern of indecent exposure, I will be forced to fess up.  Good thing we have this blog to hang me on.