One sweltering hot afternoon this past summer, as the kids were playing in the backyard, I heard, through the open window, my 7 year old daughter say to my 4 year old boy:
“Uh, I don’t think you’re supposed to be doing that.”
Oh God, what now?, I thought as I slowly turned my head toward the French doors, shifting the baby slightly on my hip.
Wait – what?! I squinted as I moved closer to the door, peering through its window.
Whoa, this is really happening!
There really was a liquid arc squirting from my son’s body onto the concrete just in front of the deck. And an enormous, proud smile lighting up his face as he observed the pee hitting the ground.
“Aariz, what are you doing?” I asked, my mind totally blank for maybe the first time in…ever.
“Oh hi, Mom.” He turned his face toward me, still smiling. Still peeing. “I wanted to pee in the bushes!” He finished peeing and pulled his clothes back up. I was stunned. In fact, so shocked, I had no idea how to react. I went with the first thing I felt like doing.
I LAUGHED MY HEAD OFF – so hard, the tears welled up in my eyes and I couldn’t even speak. Aariz and Inaya doubled over, laughing. The baby, on my hip, put her hand on my face and wouldn’t take her eyes off me. We were this way for what felt like 1000 wonderful, care-free moments. (It dawned on me later that baby Alyzeh must have been intrigued by my reaction as it was probably the first time in her short life that I had lost myself in laughter this way.)
And so what happened next? The kids went back to playing on the deck, avoiding the large puddle on the concrete – the puddle that my husband would spray down when he got home. After all, it was his sperm that decided we would have a child with a ‘hose’.
For once, my only role in the whole thing was to be the one who laughed.
