Butt Nakey.

Dec 5, 2012

Dear friends,

This is my boy.

He has hops.

Hops is what you say when you want to be urban-cool and you mean “He can jump.” I’m not urban-cool but I want to appear to be in front of my boy so I say hops.

He has big hops.

I am in love with my boy.

I loved him when he was a baby, depriving me of sleep for most of my 30s with his incessant, nocturnal restlessness and fussing.

I loved him when, at age three, he nightly sang a song called “Butt Nakey.” I’m pretty sure he meant “buck naked” but you have to admit butt nakey is far more lyrical. He always seemed to have an ear for that sort of thing.

He sang his original composition at full volume, not surprisingly while naked, typically after a bath and before pajamas.

Sometimes he sang it while chasing his sister.

She hated the Butt Nakey song.

She also hated his second favorite song, “Here Comes the Penis,” which he often sang immediately following “Butt Nakey.” “Here Comes the Penis” required a special guitar riff, which he played, also while naked, also while chasing his sister.

I love to remind my boy of how much I love him. I reminded him the other night, while telling the Butt Nakey story in front of company, and his facial expression suggested he doubted the sincerity of my declaration of love.

A couple of days later, he tweeted the following: I saw a unicorn today. Okay, I saw a girl who ate a meal without posting a picture of it on Instagram. Same thing.

I think he was taunting me. I think his Tweet was retaliation for talking about Butt Nakey.

I won’t hold it against him.

I’m too much in love to succumb to resentment.

With gratitude {for a son who has made me smile every day of his life and will forgive me for my immense love and the stories it spawns},

Joan, who has been teasing her boy of late for his “No-Shave November” beard but only because that’s her job as his mother and she doesn’t want him to know she secretly loves his beard, too