Penis envy
 

My 3-year-old daughter often "helps" me change my 3-month-old son's diaper. This morning she was putting Desitin on him and asking questions which led to this discussion about scrotums.

"I have a scrotum," she says.

"No, you don't have a scrotum, only boys have scrotums," I reply.

"It's not fair! I want a scrotum too."

I'd be curious hear about the conversation that led to her learning what a scrotum is. I don't think my nine year old daughter knows what a scrotum is.

Seconds before her asking me what it was she was putting Desitin on.

We call things by their appropriate names in our house.

Not really relevent to anything, but we also use the appropriate names. When my son was about 3, we hadn't gotten to the the term "testicles" yet. Since to him they felt like little balls, he started calling them his balls. So we'd be undressing our three year old and he's say something like "Here are my balls". I was always afraid he would say something at Church and everyone would assume that he learned it from us.

"Yes, Junior, those are your balls, and behind that is your ass".

Desitin has always freaked me out. It looks too much like toothpaste. One of my hundreds of crazy phobias is putting my toothbrush in my mouth and I find out that someone switched my toothpaste with Desitin.

In order to thwart such pranks, I simply stopped brushing my teeth.

As do we. I can't imagine doing it another way.

So we should stop teaching our kids that it is the BillyBillyBangBang and the zippitydoodabag?

I always thought it looke like that zinc oxide stuff we used to use when skiing.

If I had been clever enough to come up with names like that, I might have avoided using the appropriate names.

Maybe I could try it both ways - we used the appropriate names with our two oldest (9 and 7), but maybe with our 3 month old, we could try being a bit more creative.

Actually, it does. And it is more the consistency of zinc, as well. Desitin tends to be thicker than toothpaste.

Speakin of Zinka, how cool would it be to sooth your infant's genitals with some hot pink, dayglo green, bright orange, or Sun Yellow?

We didnt use desitin on our kids much anyway. I can't remember what we used, but we changed diapers so many times a day, we almost never had any issues of diaper rash. I think that is the key. Change the diapers all the time.