An expected first

I suppose this will never end - the flood of firsts that happen to first time parents. Maybe when he is 16 I will still be acknowledging them.

And now that he is nearing 14 months, the firsts just keep on coming. For this particular first, someone even invented the completely useless peepee teepee. When you have a baby boy, you always think you will inevitably get peed on. And don't get me wrong, there were many a times I had to jump out of the jet stream. But tonight, as I toweled dried his little squirmy body after an evening bath and he was gently and softly snuggling into my right side as my left arm dried him off...it happened. First it was this warm sensation that I thought was bath water that had somehow managed to defy gravity and jump out of the bathtub and onto my ribcage. But when I looked down and he looked down and we both managed to stop and and internally say "Oh", I knew that I had just officially and whole heartedly been peed on. And I mean really peed on.

But I didn't react. I didn't get mad. I didn't even laugh. I just watched as he with complete concentration tried to figure out what his little body had just done. It must have felt different from the hundreds of unconscious times it happens in his diapers because he looked like as baffled as a caveman who had seen fire for the first time. He was aware, he was present and he was totally intrigued.

For those of you who are not parents, I apologize that I have wasted the precious time you have in a day on a toddler's urination. But for me, it was simply one of the only times today when I actually paused - and completely stopped what I was doing and paid attention to what was happening in the moment. Not really sure that was what Buddha had in mind, but this is motherhood - I'll take the mindfulness practice any way that I can.