The Fretful Mother's Blog

The other day my daughter called me into her room and promptly locked the door. Of course my initial reaction was to look for other possible exits, but then I remembered she was 9 and I could probably take her down if it came to that. The situation deteriorated as she then proceeded to interrogate me about the purpose of belly buttons. Why did we have them? How deep did they go? What determines if you get an innie or an outie? And then she asked the most perplexing question of all: what happens if you get something stuck in it?
“Do you have something stuck in your belly button?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer and not knowing what I was supposed to do if her answer was affirmative. “I don’t know,” she said. I really thought we’d be past things like this by now. I thought most kids started jamming peas up their noses around age 3. Maybe she was a late bloomer. “What do you mean you don’t know? Either you put something in there or you didn’t.”
She looked at me incredulously as if I was the ridiculous one. “I didn’t put anything in my belly button, mom,” she said in her snotty tone. “I just need to know how to clean it.” By this time I was imagining all sorts of things that could be in there: a Hershey kiss, cereal with rat hair, a belly button ring. “Lift up your shirt!” I demanded. As she is at that age of complete horror at anyone seeing even a glimpse of her underwear, she didn’t like this. But I think she was sufficiently concerned enough about her problem that she went ahead and did it.
Everything looked totally normal to the eye of the fretful mother. “What are you worried about?” I asked her. It turns out she had discovered a piece of fuzz and she was concerned there was even more in there. She requested that I get a Q-tip and make sure there was nothing else hiding in the crevices. Everything appeared fine after that. But it got me wondering: could there be something in my belly button?
I’d always just soaped over that area paying no special attention. I now realized this was an area that could possibly hide all sorts of dangers. What if this was where bedbugs went during the day? What if I was growing fungus that could eat me from the inside out? Oh, the possibilities. From now on I will never take my belly button for granted. It will receive the full treatment of soap, Q-tips, moisturizer and anti-fungal medication every day. You can never be too safe.

This entry was posted on December 22, 2009 at 9:56 am and is filed under Fear of the Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.