FIDDLY BITS

Darkness looms. A figure hunches in the shadows of his nightly prison, incoherent whispers hush quietly, incessantly. A crack of light from an open door spills across the figure, illuminates his damp and blotchy skin. Like Gollum from Lord of The Rings, the creature springs up, shields its eyes from the piercing glare. Its fiddly fingers conceal and protect his ‘precious’ from anyone who would dare try to steal it. The frenzied whispers rise to an audible exclamation as the creature leaps toward the bars and yells excitedly…

“Wee-wee!”

Yes, at 21 months of age, our son has discovered his ‘precious’ which he kindly refers to as his ‘wee-wee’. And like Lara Bingle and bad publicity, he just can’t get enough of it. Which is not really a problem in itself. I mean, we both knew it was inevitable that he would eventually find it, and if he wasn’t meant to play with it then God would have given him shorter arms or put it somewhere you can’t reach, like the spot between your shoulder blades or on top of the fridge. But what makes things challenging, is that he tends to dig around inside his nappy for it when he’s in bed and as a result, pees all over himself and the bed.

So there we are, a tag-team midnight pit crew change. Mumma strips him down and changes his Cookie Monster jammies on the change table, while I strip down and reassemble the cot. Done and dusted in under a minute. Our precision is envious. The whole thing to him occurred as a psychedelic blur of light and fleece, to which his only recollection in the morning must be, ‘how did I change pyjamas in the middle of the night?’ But even then, the flannelette cowboys on his second pyjamas have already worked up a sweat, as he’d been digging around and struck liquid gold, yet again.

We tried dressing him in a onesie underneath, but he still manages to dig down into it. And I get it, the allure is intoxicating. An unbreakable bond. And rightly so. The two of you will no doubt become firm friends. See each other through hard times and not, through all the ups and downs that life has to offer.

I had considered the idea of tying elastic around his wrists, just long enough that he still has freedom to move around, but not quite long enough to reach the playground. But as Mumma slowly reached for the phone at the very mention of that idea, I too saw the idiocy of that plan. I mean, sure, that might work as an adult but as a toddler, it has bungee written all over it.

Perhaps it’s just a stage he’s going through that he will eventually grow out of in another 40 years or so? But if anyone out there has a trick or solution up their sleeve (no pun intended…okay, I lied. Pun fully intended), then I am all ears. Until then, the washing machine is on high alert and I am scouring eBay for an all-over-body or chastity nappy.

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