Parenting Ain't Pretty

When I started blogging, I did so with the intent of remaining anonymous. Easier said than done. Slowly, I became a little less unknown. First, I showed the husband and held my breath, waiting and watching for signs of anger or annoyance. After all, I regularly picked on him and his Mr. Pickle for blog fodder. Instead, he laughed. (Which is why I married him and remain firmly entrenched as his doting wife.) But he loved my blog so much he told a friend. And then I told a friend, and soon a whole bunch of friends knew about my anonymous blog.

Now, pretty much everyone but my mother, mother-in-law and my Boo's sisters (because they'd rat me out quicker than a hummingbird's heart beat) knows about my not-so-secret website. In fact, this weekend while I was at a pub, the D.J. wanted to talk to me so he called the Redneck Mommy up to the stage. I realized he was calling me!

Now that I am not so anonymous, I am keenly aware that my blog has ramifications it didn't before my "outing." Do I continue making snarky remarks about my mother, my MIL, or my genetically challenged family? Will my children be affected by the words I tumble out into cyber space? How far should I go to protect their privacy?

It is with great thought and consideration that I bring to you today's post. It was not an easy decision, I wrestled with it like I would wrestle my older brother for the last Pop-Tart. Not only is this post highly embarrassing to my daughter, but it is of an unseemly topic.

But in the interest of honesty and public education I have decided to proceed. Any mother (or father) who has had to clean up vomit, wipe up splattered poop, pick boogers or sop up blood from an open wound can deal with this. After all, parenting isn't clean. It's messy. We all know that.

And for you parents out there in the midst of the terrible twos or the foggy newborn stage: Brace yourselves. It gets worse.

I'm share because I care.

My daughter Fric, has been complaining of having a rash on her um, buttocks for the past week or so. She gets quite red faced and shamed; after all she is ten and almost an adult. Snort.

Finally after listening to her whine and peering at her bottom to look at this invisible rash, I had enough. I took her to our pediatrician, The Big Cheese. My love for The Big Cheese is well documented. I would marry this man if polygamy was legal out here in the sticks. So driving for an hour for the T.B.C. to peer at my daughter's bottom is not really a hardship.

Plus, there are Starbucks and Tim Horton's in the city. Win-win.

After the Big Cheese squeezed me in the warmest bear hug known to mankind, he ushered us into an exam room and proceeded to pepper us with questions. It was like being reunited with your best friend. Never mind the fact that this was the man who regularly gloved up and shoved his fingers in my child's bottom. (Come to think of it, he's done that to more than one child of mine.) Nevermind this was the same man who came at us with flu-shot the way a veterinarian would come after a lion with a tranquilizer needle. Just ram it in and get the hell out of the way. No, The Big Cheese will always be a member of our family no matter what atrocities he commits in the name of health care.

After our chat he told Fric to hop up and lose the pants. Suddenly my once red-faced daughter was eager to shed her bottoms. A kind smile and a charming word or two from a handsome man was all it took for her to drop her drawers and get on all fours.

That sentence is alarming on soooo many levels. Lord, have mercy and give me strength to get through her teen years...

A quick perusal of Fric's bottom half, he told her to hop down and get dressed. "See," I told her, "that wasn't so bad." I was all righteous with parental authority, so sure was I that this was all in her head.

Turns out I was right. There was no rash. It was in her head. But it is so much worse.

Pinworms.

I just about died laughing (yes, because I am a kind and supportive mother...) when he told Fric and me the diagnosis. Fric wasn't understanding what having Pinworms meant, so in the most sympathetic and reassuring way I could muster, I explained.

"You have worms in your ass."

My beautiful ten year old daughter was horrified. Indignant, she denied this and looked to The Big Cheese to prove me wrong.

Instead, our lovely pediatrician, my hero, laughed and said, "Yup, you've got worms crawling out of your butt. Don't tell your brother."

By now, I'm laughing so hard tears are streaming down my face and my lovely daughter is slowly killing me with her death glare.

"It's not funny, Mom!"

That's when The Big Cheese handed over the prescription and reassured my daughter everything would be fine, the worms would die. And then he told me everyone in our house had to take the medicine. Because we all might be infected.

Suddenly it wasn't so funny. And my non-itchy ass has started to itch at the mere thought.

I chose to breed for this.

An itchy ass and more mouths a mother could feed.

May the Pinworms never visit your home.