Jan. 20, 2008

Anatomy 101

My precious Livvy has really been into baby dolls and body parts lately. Not uncommon for a little girl of three years old. It's been particularly fun to watch this development because typically symbolic play is rather delayed in children with severe vision loss. Livvy is anything but delayed, in fact this week she proved herself rather advanced. At one point this week she had a measuring spoon stuck in the baby's "crack" of her arm as a "thermoiger" to take her temperature.

On Tuesday I was sitting next to her while she fed the baby.* Suddenly she chucked the baby doll down, hopped up, stood in front of me, and without warning grabbed me with both hands. And by grabbed me, I mean as in the "tune in Tokyo"** sort of manner. Rightfully I gasped and pushed her hands away while Livvy said "I touched Miss Dana's boobies!"

I quickly acknowledged the behavior with a "Livvy, yes those are my boobies. You can only touch and talk about boobies at home with your mom and dad, not at preschool." Livvy leaned her face about 1/2" away from the center of my chest and with sly smirk said "I can see Miss Dana's boobies. She has big ones!" At this point I told Olivia to go chose something to play with and while she walked away she muttered "Miss Dana has big boobies!"

When her mom picked her up I made sure to explain the situation. The last thing I need is a preschooler going home and announcing at the dinner table that she had seen Miss Dana's big boobies. The mom chuckled and told me they had been talking at home about girl boobies v/s boy boobies so I can only guess which conversation is to come next given Livvy has a 16 month old brother.

I thought that the situation was over until I was at Livvy's house on Wednesday afternoon working with said baby brother. Evan had crawled away to be rescued by his mother after I so evilly was forcing him to play with toys and cruise along the couch. Seriously, the way he cries you'd think I was beating him with a stick, but that is another story. I sat back and Livvy came bopping into my lap while I was talking with her mom. Within a flash Livvy's full arm was down my shirt and she announced very matter-of-factly "Yup, Miss Dana has a bra for her big boobies." Then hoped out of my lap and resumed her puzzle nearby. Her mom just shook her head and apologized for this bizarre curiosity Livvy currently has with my chest.

Telling this story though makes me remember another breast related incident from my first year of teaching. I had a sweet 2nd grader, Davis, with moderate intellectual disabilities. He had earned some free time and was drawing on the dry erase board at his desk. Suddenly with a large grin he announces to his peers, "Look I drew a picture of Miss Dana, and I even drew her nipples!"

Flying to his desk to quickly grab what I was guessing as 2nd grade por*n, I noticed that Davis had only drawn my face with two large dots on each side of my smile. My heart still racing as a flush of relief swept over me realizing Davis had drawn "dimples" and not "nipples". I immediately corrected that vocabulary blunder and had a rather enjoyable conversation with his very apologetic mother that afternoon. Again, the last thing I wanted was Davis announcing over dinner how much Miss Dana loved the picture he drew of her nipples. That would have really gone over well with the school board I am sure.




*Please note that I have plenty of clothes for all of the baby dolls but the first thing Livvy does each day is undress them and then play with them naked.

**Gold stars if you can name that movie.