Moms know that nothing good comes from a 15 year-old boy frantically screaming, “Mom, look at my nipple!” from across the house.
I experienced that sad reality last week when my son came running into my room screaming “There’s something VERY wrong with my nipples!”
Suffering with allergies and hopped up on a mixture of Mucinex and Benedryl, I tried to sit up in my bed and look alert as he came toward me with his dirty white t-shirt being pulled above his head.
“Look at my nipples, Mom! Look at them! Do you notice anything about them?”
“You have them?” I said, groggily.
“No, they are different sizes, Mom! This one is a man nipple and this one is a baby nipple!” he said, while pointing to each side. “Are they supposed to be like that?”
I said with reassurance, “It’s fine, Dean. Most women have one boob pop out before the other. Your body is doing the same thing. One nipple is “manning up” before the other. You’ll be fine.”
“But that’s not it, Mom. The whole left side of my body is going through puberty and my right side isn’t at all!” he said.
“Look at my underarms, Mom. On my left side, full man hair” he said, pointing to the jungle growing under his arm. “On my right side,” he exclaimed, “baby hair. Not even two full pieces!!” he said, pointing to a barren pit of skin nothingness.
Starting to see a weird pattern of pubescent growth I decided to keep a straight face and reassure him again that everything was fine. That’s when he stared right into my eyes and creepily whispered…
“But that’s not the worst of it…It gets worse, Mom.”
“You’re not going to pull your pants down, are you?” I said nervously.
“No, mom. It’s my arms, when I make a muscle look what happens!”
Then, he pulled both arms up into a bicep curl and I saw the horror. His left bicep had grown to the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, capable of rescuing babies trapped under cars!! His right side, sadly, was the size of a 12 year-old girl arm (probably a girl that plays with Barbies) with 2 weird straggly hairs sticking out of it, next to a tiny baby nipple.
Oh, my gosh! He was right!!! Only half his body was going through puberty. The other half looked like it was actually reverting to the opposite sex and aging backwards!!
I tried to look calm, in my anti-histamine stupor, and pretend this happens all the time. I said something about it “being normal” and talked about how much “girls love baby nipples!” but it didn’t really help.
“I’m sure it’s normal.” I said. “They just haven’t made a “Benjamin Button” movie about it yet so no one has ever heard of it!” That didn’t help either.
Although strange and weird, I think he secretly likes his freakish growth. Oddly, I do, too. My girlfriend was lamenting how fast her teenage son was growing up the other day.
I happily said, “Not mine. Only half his body is growing so I’m holding on to his 12 year-old girl arm for dear life.”
I figure, this way, I’ve got at least 2 more years of cuddling with his baby nipple side…and that makes me happy.
Thank you, Puberty.
Join Dena Blizzard in NYC as “One Funny Mother: I”m Not Crazy!! premiere’s Off-Broadway!! The show premieres April 18 and runs every Saturday through Mother’s Day Weekend! Check out the calendar for all the NYC dates. Come out and enjoy a night of laughs or buy tickets for your mom, sister or best friend! For tickets, click here.