Naked Baby- Oh My Gosh!

Just the other day, my children’s Papa D had been over for a visit when Stinx appeared in her birthday suit, as usual, fresh from a nap. “Now just wait a minute here,” her Papa exclaimed as she headed straight for him, squealing with delight at the sight of a favorite familiar face. “I know she likes to be naked a lot, but you mean to tell me she woke up and immediately took her clothes off?” Then, just as vividly as if a cartoonist had drawn a picture of a light bulb right above his head clicking on as the realization sank in, he stammered with a look of absolute horror on his face, “Or… did she… sleep naked?” She had, indeed. “You need to get a grip on this naked thing, it’s not healthy for her. You’re gonna do some permanent damage if you can’t control her now.”

Someone please tell me what is wrong with babies and little kids being naked? I’m talking about the under-4 crowd. You know the ones I’m referring to here, specifically, though, because it’s always okay for baby babies to be nakie. I’m talking more about the likes of those older toddlers who haven’t reached fully potty trained status and haven’t started preschool, yet, so they’re not officially preschoolers. Yeah, those kids. They’re the ones this blog’s all about. If they’re really that comfortable running around naked with the winds blowing freely within the confines of their domicile and backyard, then so be it! They’re still just little kids, our babies, at the end of the day and they’re not hurting anyone.

This is one angrivating case that I see in need of defense, for the sake of the diabolical youth sucking-sanity ravaging-energy draining- leech that I bore from the depths of my uterus. I’m on a mission to tell it like it is for us, because I know Stinx is far from alone in her naturally organic state of being, there are Facebook statuses and Tweets galore about little kids getting nakie at the most inconveniencing of times. Luckily, Stinx keeps her nudism practicing to our residence. In fact, she’s happily playing with her (fully-clothed) dolls and stuffed animals in the next room, wearing her birthday suit, while I’m sitting at the kitchen table writing this. She’s happy and content. Untethered by restriction in movement and not bothered by the different sensations of rubbing, creeping, or bunching fabric, she’s more focused on her play, more concentrated on her actions, and just plain happier in the nude. What’s so wrong with that?

It was really shocking when my kid started refusing to put on her clothes every morning, more desperate sounding with each plea for me to leave her alone, as if we were brutally killing her spirit with conformity. Especially shocking for me personally, with Stinx being my fourth edition uterine trophy and all that jazz. I was supposed to have this deal nailed to the wall by now and good parents kept their children perfectly groomed and manicured, in a coordinating, stunning outfit that drowns out their own cuteness. Throughout my pregnancy with her, I talked some mad game to all the newbie parents I met, or anyone nonchalantly asking if this was my first baby. I was bragging about how I could parent this last one with my eyes closed, in a semi-conscious state of half-sleep which would be way more sleep than they’d get during the first few years of raising their first few babies. If they could even survive the first few months of that first baby to have any more kids, that is!

It all started innocently enough, when Stinx was still an infant. An infant with sensitivities to all foods citrus, made with citrus, or colorings extracted from anything citrusy. And tomatoes. Tomatoes were a big no-no, too. Unless you didn’t mind dealing with the world’s most painfully burning and raw-looking diaper rash on those delicate nether regions of the normally smiling, happy-go-lucky baby of mine, that is. Then, of course, by all means go for it. I, shamefully, did… Accidentally. On a number of occasions. Without ever intending to purposefully or being consciously aware that I was allowing her to ingest the kryptonite to her delicate baby tush. Like, who would’ve even thought that the minuscule, less than 5% amount of “real” juice that’s in Hawaiian Punch brand juice would contain enough citrus to cause a reaction. The stuff’s just glorified Maybe the Hawaiian part should’ve tipped me off, but just because I’m  intelligent doesn’t automatically make me the brightest crayon in the box. For what I exude in textbook smarts, I totally lack in the cleverness department.

So, like all good parents do when their sweet little chubby-wubby’s bums are five-alarm inflamed, causing torturous shrieks capable of bringing down Isis, The Watchtower, and The Red Army, while simultaneously sending Hitler out of hiding with Elvis close on his heels being for mercy, in less than ten minutes time: I let her air out nakie for a while after each diaper change. My failure at bringing home a single, measly Mother of the Year award since I started this mom gig way back in ’04 should tell you the frequency with which her sensitivity slipped my mind. If she had been a full-out, Epi-Pen carrying kind of allergic, I can say without any uncertainty, that Stinx would be dead by now. Thankfully though, she wasn’t, and she’s still alive and kicking back, full-blown naked, for the world to see.

As time has passed, every milestone has marked a further progression towards her current in-house nudist gig. Her futile struggles to escape the cruel, evil punishment of getting dressed up like a miniature fashion model crossbred with an American Girl Doll turned into an adamant, down-right refusal to get dressed without a Mortal Kombat-style fight. That turned into the ability to undress herself with such deceptiveness and stealth, the US Navy would be clamoring to contract her to teach her ingenious techniques to their Seals. Whereas, I was at once unabashedly relieved by the fact that Stinx began to get dressed cooperatively again, I was sorely disappointed absolutely freaking horrified to discover that her newest insanity-causing mission was to manipulate my attention inadvertently to perform her Instantaneously Nekkid maneuver. She’d immediately bring her magically shed garments to me while I’m still off on the house chase she sent me on, prancing with sassy confidence and sporting a charming, Who’s the Boss, now? smirk, making her out to be the tiniest female I’ve ever given the Bitch title to, for all the right reasons.

Now, here we are with a three year old who’s got the handle on this potty training thing pretty well….  and I’m looking sheepish with this foot-in-mouth syndrome like I just don’t give a single damn over this kid who prefers to rock her aû naturále style. It was never my intention to raise a nudist straight outta the gates. If she had grown up and decided that she wanted to live in a nudist colony or something, more power to her. But she’s not grown. Not even close to hitting the double digits, yet, and that’s quite all right with me, nevertheless. Why? Because my kid is happiest naked.

There’s going to be a ton of people reading this about to jump straight out of their skins. They’re the one’s who want to corner me and, just like Papa D, tell me it’s not right for a few various reasons. One being, for the worry over the sexualization factor. I’m exposing my older children to a naked body, my sons especially, shouldn’t be seeing her female ody parts regularly. Which means crap to me because I don’t think anything is sexualized among children unless we tell them and show them to do as such. I think it’s an early lesson to my sons on how to treat girls equally and not objectify them.

Or the peanut gallery says I’m inviting perverts. By allowing her to go around naked, I’m virtually waving a sign that says, “Please come hurt my child”. It’s not like I’m sending her out in our front yard, or worse yet, the main road that doubles as a connecting highway for local overflow traffic going between two of the three major freeways my ity was built around, unsupervised with that sign. Her nips might be poking through in a photo of her I post on Facebook, but so what? They’re just some nubs of skin on a toddler’s chest that look more like buttons for turning their energy and volume levels on and off than anything else.

I also get those who tell me that I’m psychologically damaging her by not forcing the issue. Everyone becomes an instant, on-the-spot psychic with their blatant fortune telling of Stinx’s certain future as a drug-addicted, prostitute/stripper, felonious criminal all because I didn’t take charge of her and show her who’s boss. That, whatever I say, goes. But, most importantly of all, that it’s wrong to be naked just to be naked. These dim-witted, crackpot people are ashamed of their own nakedness, uncomfortable in their own skins, and spew the loathing of their own self-images upon others like Stinx’s backwash in my bottle of soda after eating Doritos. They project their own mixed-up, quirky, traumatized beliefs onto my fresh-slated, innocent child who knows no better than to love wholly, unconditionally, and purely of not just others, but of herself. She has no body image, yet. She just is who she is and proud of it…probably a lesson those fortune tellers should take heed of and follow in example. (Just keep it in your residence with the shades drawn, for my already semi-blurred vision’s sake, please!)

It doesn’t matter what argument you try to bring to the table, unless you have proof that death is imminently related to the running around of a nakie baby, then, seriously! I don’t want to hear it! Stinx can run around my house in her birthday suit as long as she’s little, because she’ll never be this little again. Maybe, if your lucky enough to live next dooror behind my house, you’ll even catch a glimpse of that cute little tushy splashing excitedly around her kiddie pool this summer in my backyard. We’ll leave our eggs nesting, not counting them until they hatch on their own, and deal with what we get as it comes. There’s no need to rush her to grow up faster than she’s going to on her own. I can’t even believe that as much time has passed by as it already has. So if you’ve got plans to come over any time soon, don’t doubt for a second that Stinx will actually have clothes on. Because she won’t, and that’s just all right by this Angrivated Mom, as I hope it should be all right by you, as well. If not, I claim ZFG!