Naked Baby Bums

Julia loves to be naked and she invariably loves to play in the dog's water dish, so one thing generally leads to the other. So when she came over to me sopping wet, her dress dripping on the floor, screeching, I figured she was requesting to be naked. Sure enough. She stopped in front of me and pulled at her dress and I obliged. Down to her diaper, she begins to tug and say off, off, off. I humor her. And off she scampers. Now, there's a couple of things here.

She doesn't have many words, certainly less than she should at this age. Lot's of animal sounds... well, okay, some animal sounds, and quite a repertoire of other noises as well. We have been working on the important ones- 'more, please, mama, mommy, thank you, hot, up, uh-oh, ow, hi. Some of these have been her initiation and some ours.

'Up', is not one of them.

But, today, there it was. How do they do that??

The other thing? Little naked baby butt's are the cutest damn thing! I just want to squeeze 'em! I'd put a picture here, but am just to wary of putting my daughter's naked bum on the internet.

And the last thing... reminds me of a moment. A moment, I think was one of my ultimate 'duh' moments.

Both the little girls have mongolian spots. Go ahead and click on that little link because Wikipedia can explain it way better than I can. Our birth children don't have any, but some of our foster kids have. I can recall being told what these were at some point, years ago, so they have never alarmed me. I have, however, heard terrible stories of child care providers reporting a parent to CPS for suspicious bruising.

In any case, early on in Ruby's placement with us, her birth mother was interested in attending a 'well baby check up' with our pediatrician. This is one of the rights that birth parents have when their child is in placement. I informed our pediatrician before arriving that the birth mother would be attending as well. I'm on the frequent caller list there, they know to expect me, but I like to give them a heads up if there will be birth parents attending as well. Luckily, our pediatrician speaks a fair amount of Spanish and was able to communicate with the birth mom. Ruby's birth mom was born in the US, but raised in Mexico. Her heritage is Mexican. We only heard a smattering of English and were led to believe that her understanding of English was also very poor. Communication was difficult for us, since I only remember very few words and phrases from high school. (Sorry, Ms. Modena)

So, the pediatrician is examining Ruby and communicating to both myself and Ruby's birth mother and as she turns Ruby on to her belly her Mongolian spot is in plain view. Remembering that these spots are often mistaken for bruises, I ask the Dr. to please point out what the bluish, green area is on Ruby's lower backside. The Dr. nods and proceeds to point to the area and speak with birth mom. The Dr. then turned to me and I nodded and said "thanks, I didn't want the area to be mistaken for bruising ..." The Dr. nods again and says, ever so politely "I think she already knew what it was".

Well, of course, DUH! Birth mom is Mexican, her entire family is Mexican, these spots are common in people of Latin descent... I felt like such an idiot.

Bookmark this post with:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•