Toulouse and Tonic

photo by James Mikel

Three days ago, little Meyer finally got his willy whacked. To find out why a 10-month-old baby is just getting circumcised, read It’s 9:30 in the morning: do you know where your foreskin is?

My oldest boy was circumcised as a newborn and I don’t remember his penis being this…um, incensed afterwards.

Meyer’s pecker looks like it should be legally ordered into anger management, like, NOW.

If his penis was a person, it would be Naomi Campbell’s cell phone-heaving soul inside the body of Conan O’Brien after having exited a fully engulfed flaming building via a window on the 4th floor.

The baby’s discomfort is evident at all times when he’s not sleeping.

His parents’ discomfort is evident mostly during diaper changes.

Shudder.

And we’re doing diaper changes pretty frequently because, ya know, urine and poop aren’t the most soothing things to irritated, throbbing, raw, red penis skin.

And when I say “we,” I mean Gabe. Because before today, I’d only changed his diaper 2 times since the surgery.

Without anyone even asking, Gabe has stepped up to the plate, changing diapers, smearing ointment all over the place so things don’t “stick,” and so pee doesn’t burn so badly, and most impressively, making sure the baby has Tylenol in his system at all times. Gabe voluntarily set an alarm for the dark, wee hours of the morning Saturday and Sunday, and hauled his ass out of bed just to dose a completely asleep baby with Tylenol.

Now that’s penis-empathy.

The happy baby candy cane. Pre-cut, of course.

Sunday morning, I woke with Meyer and changed my first post-circumcision diaper.

The things I had to do with Neosporin ointment.

We shall never speak of it again.

After the surgery Friday, the doctor informed us that we were obliged to pull the skin back with each diaper change, then clean and smear copious amounts of ointment all over as a barrier.

Pulling back the inflamed skin is a nightmare for everyone involved.

And yesterday morning, I determined that I thought some of the inflamed tissue might be sticking to itself and not healing correctly.

This information was more than enough to get my husband’s immediate attention.

We gathered our diaper, wipes, and ointment, laid the baby down on the floor and opened up the diaper.

And gasped, clinging to each other.

Not because anything was really different from the last diaper change, but just because it’s gasp-worthy.

Then Gabe began to examine it while I hovered over, pointing with my shaking finger and mumbling about how it kept staring at me with its angry eye.

Me: ”See underneath, how it’s up higher than in the front? It seems stuck at the bottom there.”

Him, cocking his head to look underneath: ”I think it’s fine.”

Me: ”Is that what it’s supposed to look like? With more showing at the front and shorter underneath?”

Him: Pausing, glancing down at his zipper, shrugging his shoulders.

Me: Understanding his intention, rolling over onto my side on the carpet, laughing hysterically.

Him: Taking “it” out.

Us, nodding in unison: ”Yep, that’s what it’s supposed to look like.”

Gabe went back to applying the ointment.

Me: ”Are his balls supposed to be that color? Are they bruised?”

Him: ”Stop obsessing about the baby’s junk and put the diaper back on.”

And so went the weekend of the weiner.

Today, Gabe is back at work and the inflamed member is solely in my hands.

Literally.

So far this morning, there’s general agreement between me, Meyer and our male dog that my experience smearing mustard on hot dogs has not translated into the best baby weiner-care technique.

Gulp.

Hot dogs are dead to me.

As I’m writing this, Meyer (corrected age 7 1/2 months) is currently having his little penis whacked by an expert surgeon who, according to the nurse, takes immense pride in circumcisions.

Our first son had his foreskin removed like most boy babies, right after being born.

But this one? There were bigger priorities.

Like, ya know, living.

Meyer was born at 29 weeks gestation and has a long and complicated medical history. He lived in the NICU for the first 2 1/2 months of his life. You can read more about the saga here. And here. And here.

As issues have worked themselves out, the penis started to pop up.

Literally.

I learned this from our highly inappropriate nurse, who just spent 20 minutes dropping the word “erection” into the conversation waaaay more often than anyone needed.

Several of Meyer’s doctors have mentioned that things are a little, er, tight on the tallywhacker and indeed, it’s a little hard to do a thorough cleaning job down there. Another one of those tasks, along with wiping poop out of ball crevices, that I never imagined myself doing, yet do every day of my life.

So often, in fact, that sometimes I forget to even wash my hands afterwards.

May I offer you something to eat?

So here we are.

Meyer has been wheeled back and Gabe and I are still talking about the weird conversation we just had with his nurse.

She talked extensively about baby boys’ erections vs. grown men’s erections, about penis pain and how my husband “knew what she was talking about” (wink, wink), about how important it is to men to have pretty penises even though “we women don’t notice.”

It went way beyond clinical.

We began to get so uncomfortable neither one of us would make eye contact with her.

When she finally left the room, Gabe said, “That’s way more information than I will ever need to know about my baby son’s boner.”

I did take some comfort, however, in knowing how much pride an expert surgeon like ours takes in sculpting a fine wiener.

The nurse insists that of all the incredibly complicated surgeries he and the other doctors perform around Children’s Hospital of Atlanta everyday, it’s the well-done wee-wee whacks that they’re proudest of.

Boys and their toys.

And by that, I mean their penises.

Apparently, Meyer’s newly peeled pecker will come with some kind of plastic bell over it, akin to those plastic cones dogs wear.

This should be a fun new skill for me to acquire. Cleaning a penis bell.

He won’t hate that at all.

It’s 9:30 in the morning. Do you know where your foreskin is?

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