Things that Come in Twos

I’ve been with a lot of little ones this week on the book tour for Proud Mouse. In honor of those young people, their innocence and curiosity, I’m posting this story from my unpublished archive. Enjoy and remember that Jake, featured in the story, just had his 21st birthday!

Things That Come in Twos: Butts

Just before Jake’s first birthday, the boys’ dad and I separated. Within a few months, I opted to go back to CU Boulder for my teaching certificate and we moved into a family housing complex in Boulder named Smiley Court. I can’t count the number of times I drove over the yellow speed bump past that patronizing sign in tears, cursing irony.

As a family housing complex it was home to lots of young kids, many of whom were international. We’d been living there about a year and Jake had become good friends with a stunning Chilean girl who lived in the unit on the other end of our short block. She had hair and eyes as dark brown as possible without being black, and short bangs. It would be easy to compare her to a doll, but it wouldn’t do her justice. She had too much spunk and would never be caught “sitting pretty”. 

One afternoon, inspired by my future occupation as an educator, I called a bunch of the neighborhood kids to come sit with me while I read them a book. Marianna had three sisters including a very new one, if two of them joined her we’d have enough of a group for a small read aloud: Avery, Jake, Marianna and her sisters, but I got lucky and a couple other kiddos chose to join us too.

I sat on the stoop and they sat on the sidewalk in front of me. I opened “No David,” by David Shannon. It begins with a picture of David precariously standing on a chair reaching for a cookie jar, “No David,” his mother says from off the page. Then a two-page spread of David’s face with half his index finger up his nose. “No, David, no.” When I got to the page where David runs down the street butt naked, the picture showing his backside in the distance running down the neighborhood sidewalk, Jake was inspired. Before I could stop him, he whisked off his shorts and was running around in circles with his penis flopping about. 

Two important reminders: One, Marianna had three sisters and no brothers. Two, nobody likes to leave things dangling. Not cables–we manage them with all sorts of contraptions. Not spaghetti–we twirl it around a fork. Not long hair–we don’t leave the house without at least one hair tie on our person. Not even participles, and I still don’t understand what they are. 

So when Jake’s penis was within reach, I wasn’t surprised that Marianna wasted no time grabbing it. Jake, on the other hand, was very surprised. He started screaming. Then crying. He twisted about and ran in circles, trying to get Marianna to let go, to no avail. 

I was only a few feet away from them, knowing this would be funny in retrospect and trying to figure out how best to get from the current state of screaming and tears to that retrospective moment I would no doubt share with his future prom date. My attempts were futile and sounded a whole like like the book we’d just been reading.

“No, Marianna, no!” 

“Stop, Jakie, stop!” 

Eventually, Mariana lost her grip and Jake came running toward me with a sweaty face streaked with tears and wrapped his arms around my legs. I lifted him into my arms, his naked butt cute as ever resting on my forearm. And when the tears subsided I simply said, “Should we put some pants on?” He nodded. He didn’t need to be asked twice.

A few days later, the prior kerfuffle long forgotten, I walked Jake and Mariana up the stairs of our two story unit to play in his room. The staircase was made of linoleum and designed to meet outdated building codes, that is to say, it was steeper than it should have been. I fixed a gate to the top of the stairs and made a habit of always following the kids on their ascent. I didn’t like to leave Jake and Mariana unattended for even a second for obvious reasons, but I needed to grab a load of laundry to fold while they played. I told them I’d be right back, closed the baby gate behind me, and raced downstairs. I couldn’t have been gone more than a minute when I heard Jake shriek. My heart sank to my stomach and I ran upstairs two steps at a time. 

I found the two of them in the bathroom. Jake was sitting against the bathtub sobbing and Mariana was standing over the toilet, next to the flusher. Relieved to see that they were both okay, at least physically unharmed, I squatted down in front of Jake and asked what happened? He was gasping for air. He could barely get a word out through his choppy breath. 

“She, sh-, sh-, she, flushed, m-, m-, my, poopy-” and then the rest came out in a falsetto cry, “-down the pahhhh——teeee.” He appeared inconsolable. “And I didn’t get to show it to you!” 

“Oh Sweetheart, there’ll be plenty more where that came from.” I wasn’t certain of many things, but I was certain of that.

He stopped crying and I thought my efforts to calm him down were working. I continued, “Really, I don’t even need to see your poop. I’ve seen so much of it already.” 

But Jake wasn’t looking at me anymore. He’d fallen silent, distracted. I followed his gaze over to Mariana who was no longer standing over the toilet, but had pulled her underwear down past her knees and crept up onto the toilet seat. She sat there balancing on the edge, swinging her legs and looking around the room. She’d completely ignored Jake’s theatrics. 

Jake looked at me, his brow scrunched, his eyes still glassy from the tears who’s cause had already been forgotten. Then he looked back at Mariana, more specifically at the folds of her vulva below her protruding belly. He seemed confused. Once again, he looked back at me. 

“Two butts, Mommy?”

I looked at Mariana and immediately saw the world through my son’s eyes. Mariana has two butts. Letting go–even of poop and penises–is hard to do. And Mama has all the answers. For now.

“Yep. Two butts,” I said.