"Itchy Butt"

For the past 6 1/2 years, my husband and I have been fully immersed in parenthood. We happen to love the job; however, there are times when it is less than glamorous. For example, I've had the opportunity to catch vomit in my lap. My husband has had the rare treat of being spit up on, into his own mouth, while holding our daughter up in the air. I've gotten the chance to scrub poop off of the floor, walls, and exam table at the doctor's office. And my husband has had the remarkable experience of holding our son, in the checkout line, while our little bundle proceeds to have explosive diarrhea all over his arm. And yes, he still managed to pay the bill.

As you can see... the slimy, smelly, and sticky aspects of parenting are, indeed, plentiful.  I thought after all of these experiences, that we were experts in the "art of yuck", but I was wrong... so very wrong.

Let us rewind to last week. As my son was about to hop out of the car on his way to school, he stopped and said, "Ouch, my butt itches!" My initial response was, "Well, scratch it!" Within a moment, his discomfort subsided and he proceeded to head into school. I figured that this was simply a random "itchy butt" moment; it happens to the best of us, right? Anyway, he mentioned later that it bothered him a couple of times during the day, but it wasn't too bad. I didn't think much of this, until I brought it up to my Mom. She immediately said, "Uh oh!" And I said, "What do you mean, uh oh?" She then uttered the dreaded word... "worms!"

My husband and I looked at each other, and then said, "Well, that's just gross!" I decided that this was simply too terrible a thought to entertain, so this mustn't be the problem, period. Besides, we bathe our kids at least every other day and my son is a very conscientious hand washer. The next day went by fine, so my husband and I decided that we were out of the "itchy butt" woods, so to speak. We really felt like we dodged a bullet on this one! That is, until... 12:30 A.M., Friday night (why do these things always happen on the weekend!) when our son came into our room. He stood next to the bed and sheepishly said, "Mom, Dad my butt really itches."

"Freakin' great!"

My husband immediately pulls out his trusty IPAD and starts researching, what he so affectionately refers to as, "itchy butt". There are a few causes for "itchy butt"; such as, improper wiping, hemorrhoids, a rectal scratch, and... you guessed it, worms! Well, for the next hour we all laid in bed bantering wildly about "itchy butt"! And since my husband and I are both hypochondriacs, we immediately concluded that we also had "itchy butt"! In our defense, it's nearly impossible to talk about "itchy butt" without somehow experiencing the symptom. Admit it... your butt is probably itching at this very moment!

So long story short, we manage to get our son a Saturday doctor's appointment. My husband, lucky guy, gets to take him. The doctor isn't certain that he has worms, but she does say that it is very common among children. And since our son's classroom has the sink outside the room with the toilet, there is certainly the opportunity for dirty little hands to touch the bathroom doorknob all day long. It is highly likely, that a finger will sneak its way into the mouth or nose before getting to the sink. So, worms is certainly a possibility for all young children, nasty!

The doctor then makes a surprising suggestion about how to confidently make this determination. Get ready for this... She tells my husband, that we should go into our son's room in the middle of the night with a flashlight and some scotch tape. We're supposed to stick the tape to his butt and then examine it. Apparently, these nasty little suckers glow in the dark! My husband explains the plan to me and my son says, "If you're going to do that, make sure that I'm sleeping!" We promised that we would be very stealth about the whole thing.

When nighttime rolled around, my husband and I made a very important collective decision about the doc's suggestion. We decided, "Thanks, but no thanks. We'll have to respectfully pass on that one!"

Instead, we opted to give him the worming meds... just in case. We're not big on prescriptions in our household, but on this occasion, we made an exception.

Our son took this whole experience in amazing stride, which is highly uncharacteristic for him. Honestly, you can ask anyone who knows him; going with the flow is not his natural state. He didn't even mind when his sister ran up to him and said, "Hey, can I see your butt bugs?"

He simply laughed, and thankfully, kept his "butt bugs" to himself.