A harbinger of things to come and the single mom

I've had two back-to-back instances this week that are reminding me of the fears I have long harbored about being a single mom raising a son. There are going to be things I can't explain, things I don't quite understand and certainly things I just plain don't know about.

And then there are going to be those things that I wish I didn't have to deal with, times when I could probably come up with the knowledge but that I'd much rather a man deal with. Turns out, we're there already.

My son was climbing into the backseat of the car with me the other day after we'd been on a trip with my parents. As he buckled up, he said something along the lines of, "It feels weird when my pee-pee sticks out, and I have to push it down." (Forgive me if that's not verbatim. I'm doing everything I can to wipe the memory from my internal hard drive, but it's not working. It's burned in there permanently, it seems, in the way only traumatic, scarring events are.)

Sure enough, I look over, and there he is, pushing down a little hard-on over and over. I suggested maybe if he stopped pushing on it altogether, it wouldn't stick out like that in the first place.

"But I like the way it feels."

Well, no duh. But, damn!, I'm not equipped for this conversation with my 5 year old.

And then a night or two later, he was getting ready for bed. He had stripped down to his birthday suit and was walking around the room gathering pajamas and pull-up and other bedtime accoutrements, the whole time with his penis in his hand.

I glanced over at him and told him to stop walking around playing with his penis. Ever the obedient child, he promptly sat down to continue playing with his penis.

I texted a (male) friend about it, and his response was, "What else could he do?"

I'm trying to be enlightened about this. I don't want to teach my son, either purposefully or accidentally, that it's wrong or shameful to explore his own body. I just don't want to see it while he's walking around his room!

So, brothers dear, if you're reading this, I'm calling one of y'all next time this situation comes up (no pun intended) so that someone, anyone other than me, can start explaining to him about discretion and privacy.