The Nudist

For some reason, my four-year-old boy seems to be allergic to wearing pants.  Underwear too, for that matter.

I've heard of kids who spontaneously strip off their clothes at random and inappropriate times, and I suppose I should be grateful that he's not doing that.  Instead, he chooses to express his disdain for covering his privates by getting conveniently distracted while changing.  He'll take his pajama pants and Pull-Up off in the morning, but then he just never seems to get around to putting any underwear or pants on. 

This isn't so much of a big deal on weekdays, when he has to hustle to get dressed so he can be taken to preschool, but on the weekends he seems to believe that the house is his own private nudist resort. 

On Saturday mornings it's not uncommon to find him jumping up and down on the easy chair with just his pajama-shirt on and his "parts" merrily flapping about.  One would think it would be uncomfortable to have all that floppage, but apparently he gets a kick out of it.  I'm glad he enjoys himself, but I just wish he'd engage in an activity that was a tad more visually appealing for the rest of us.

My husband is even more put off by Evan's behavior than I am; while I find it merely distasteful to see my son's privates displaying themselves at every turn, my husband sees Evan's nakedness as a general threat to the safety and cleanliness of our home.

On weekends I will hear my husband holler repeatedly, "Evan!  Don't sit down on the sofa with your naked butt!  Your butt is dirty!  For God's sake, put some underwear on before you sit on anything!"

This tactic is usually counterproductive, as my son finds it tremendously amusing to get his daddy riled up.  So he'll stall and come up with odd positions to sit in where his bum isn't actually touching the sofa, which just annoys my husband even more.

And thus, the weekends turn into the nudey-wars at our house.

Notice the naked bum, not in contact with the sofa.

Evan's nudist tendencies manifest themselves outside the home as well.  Recently, when he had to go to the hospital for a procedure, he adamantly refused to wear the little kiddie hospital pants that went with the cute little hospital shirt.  Despite the nurses' insistence that he would be cold, my son stubbornly shunned the pants, claiming that he was fine with just the tiny shirt that stopped at his belly-button.  He paraded down the halls proudly, getting odd looks from passersby, while I held the hospital pants in my hand and returned people's confused expressions with a look that I hoped said, "I tried to get him to wear them, but what can I do?"

One nurse joked that I will inevitably receive an angry call someday from Evan's college dean, telling me that my son has gotten in trouble for streaking naked across campus. 
 
Truth be told, I am a bit worried that one day my son is going to offend someone with his shameless displays. After swim class the other day, Evan stripped off his suit and began singing and prancing about the locker room—completely naked.  While I struggled to wrestle my daughter out of her suit, my son ran up to the other moms, turned his naked butt in their direction and shouted "I fart on you!"

He then erupted into maniacal giggles and shut himself inside one of the swim lockers.

"I'm so sorry," I babbled to the ladies, "I think he's part baboon..."

"Well, I think it's nice that he's so comfortable with himself!" a kind grandmother said, although I have reason to believe she was merely taking pity on me.

To make matters worse, I'm convinced Evan is deliberately upping the ante with his naked cavorting, engaging in more bizarre and dangerous behaviors to shock my husband and me.  This past weekend he happily plopped his naked bottom on the Sit-and-Spin, and when my hubby yelled at him for putting his bare butt on the toy, Evan said, "Fine, then, I'll just do this!"  And he stood up and started spinning.  
 

 

Needless to say, this turn of events went over like a lead balloon.  My hubby immediately started yelling at him, "Evan!  That's not safe!  You can't spin on that standing up!  Get off of that and put some pants on!"

Evan responded to this by kneeling down and continuing to spin. 

"Look, Daddy, I'm not standing anymore!"

My husband let out an annoyed huff and glared at me.  "Why are you taking pictures?  You're just encouraging him!" he hollered. 

I shrugged.  In all honestly, I do find Evan's antics somewhat hilarious.  If you've never seen a four-year-old bent over the wheel of a Sit-and-Spin, turning around and around with his naked rump in the air, then you should stop by my house on a Saturday morning sometime—it's definitely something you should observe at least once in your lifetime.  How could I not take pictures of something so ridiculous?

At any rate, I think justice will be mine in the end; my hubby will undoubtedly forgive me when Evan turns sixteen and my husband discovers how useful the pictures will be for blackmail purposes.  After all, if we have to stare at my son's bare bottom for the next ten years until Evan realizes that civilized people wear clothes, we should at least get some mileage out of it.     

And I have a very special scrapbook planned.  Just wait until he brings home his first girlfriend!