Dim Sum Mum - Tess' Little Pieces:

one million years ago bc (before children) there were many floating expressions out there that i had no interest in ever putting into practise. teaching your grandmother to suck eggs is a fine example.

so it is an example of the sinister powers of infants that days after sebastian was born i decided to practise my pucker and kiss a$$.

as with most progressions into things you always swore you would never do but ended up doing, it started off innocently.

after each vigorous scrubbing of sebastian's bow legs and bottom in order to remove that truly appalling meconium stuff (which i truly believe is made of melted tyre), i would decend upon him to get an idea if he was sufficiently cleaned. had been restored to that extremely wonderful, baby scented bald he-child i found so interesting.

that swoop was actually a confirmation for me that i was doing okay at the newborn parenting gig. i hated the pain of breastfeeding, and needed a reassurance that if i couldn't ungrudgingly fill him up, at least i was doing an above average job of cleaning the little man.

poised above that little tushie, it was a slippery slope to move forward one inch and kiss his little bottom. and then next day, both sides. then i added the butt kissing to his removal from bath routine. so fresh smelling, so bouncy so cute. and he didn't mind at all.

one of my harshest memories of the triplets was their lack of bottom. i remember the first time i saw them naked - they all had the crease/crack, but it looked like it had been painted on, because the crack was even with the skin next to it, instead of gently nestled in the slope between the two butt cheeks. seeing that my children couldn't open their eyes, had no nipples and fingernails, and backs furrier than my second year university boyfriend's was tough, but not as startling as the lack of area surrounding crack.

they did eventually acquire bouncy bottoms, and very nice ones i must admit. so it is no problem for me to once again assume my rightful role of bum smoocher. and as a parent who sees on an all too regular basis the appalling mess that comes flying out of those deceptively cute bottoms on an all too regular basis, you would think i would be the last person nosing around there. however, that is not the case.

will i ever put other strange expressions into practise? while i have no desire to put things in my pipe and smoke them, and hope that i will still continue using the lavatory instead of weeing up a rope, parenthood does strange things to people, so let's not put all our eggs into one basket.