When my son Aaron was born there was great concern about how three and half-year-old Ariel would take his arrival. She had emphatically announced prior to his birth that she wanted a sister. When we gently pointed out the possibility of a brother, she dismissed it as a bad joke. Unfortunately, the joke was on her. A brother did arrive in all his nine-pound glory.
Ariel’s first visit with Aaron was a little shaky. That is, John and I shook with fear as we lay the babe in her arms. She was wonderful as she cooed softly in his ear. He was so small, yet in her arms he looked enormous. A thousand questions raced through my mind as I tried to imagine the joy and companionship these two would give to each other throughout their lives.
The next morning, Aaron was circumcised just after his first feeding. The doctor came in to explain the procedure. A tiny plastic cap had been installed at the tip of his penis, and over a five- to eight-day period, the cap would gradually complete the circumcision, and would then fall off. She left a pamphlet for me to read but, as Aaron then began to cry out for his next feeding, I placed the pamphlet on top of the cabinet just beneath his bassinet. Ariel, John, and my parents arrived shortly after Aaron began his meal, and I forgot all about the pamphlet.
In all the adult cacophony, Ariel turned her attentions to exploring the room. Within a few moments, she discovered the pamphlet in all its full-color glory. At some point I became aware of her little voice trying to break through the din, “Mama . . . Mama . . . Mama. What are these pictures about?” Tightly grasped in her little hand, was the pamphlet. Each stage was carefully mapped out so the parents of a newly circumcised baby could be clear about what to expect over the next few days as the plastic cap did its job. “Well . . .,” I said. I could see my parents’ wide-eyed staring at me—the room suddenly quiet. Too quiet. This topic would never have been addressed when I was a child much less when they were children. How was I to answer my daughter honestly without embarrassing my parents whose faces were already slightly stained with blush?
I bravely made the plunge. “There’s a small piece of extra skin on the end of Aaron’s penis that the doctor has placed a plastic cap on. In a few days, the cap will fall off and the extra skin will come off with it.” There! I did it. Did she buy it? What other questions were lurking in that brain? Ariel looked at me, searching my face to be sure I had spoken the truth. Her eyes dropped to the pamphlet to examine the photos. Convinced that what I had said matched the pictures, she folded the pamphlet up and placed it back on the cabinet. The room visibly sighed with relief. Suddenly Ariel’s face lit up with a brilliant smile as she announced, “I’ll help you cut Aaron’s penis off.” We all stared in shock, tongue-tied. My mother saved the moment, uttering in absolute deadpan, “Hide the knives.”
Copyright DJ Anderson, 1990
