Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Diaper Free or Circumcise

We took Lincoln to the doctor today because he has a sore on the tip of his penis and we had seen a similar sore on his sack a few weeks earlier. The previous one went away, but if it was continuing to occur we wanted to check out to see what it is. We went to the same hospital but saw a different doctor. The doc was super nice, but he was definitely not our doctor who knows our philosophy on parenting and didn't even offer us circumcision when Link was born. When this new doctor was looking at the sore his first words were "Well, if this keeps occuring we could easily have him circumcised." I think we were both equally shocked. Us at what he said and the doc at our reaction. Bryce and I view circumcision as genital mutilation and cannot even fathom doing it to our son. The problem boils down to Link's penis rubbing against the diaper is causing these blisters, just like running in sweaty socks. He has super sensitive skin anyway, breaking out in large heat rashes every time he sweats. The prescription is neosporin, but there is no promising it won't return as long as he continues to wear a diaper. Ahh, we thought. There is the solution. No diaper. We have several friends who do this but have never been brave enough to do it. Now, there really isn't a choice. We are either doing "elimination communication" or we may end up having to have a medical prescribed circumcision. As soon as we got home the diaper came off. Link loved it. We're warming up. My observations on day one: Lincoln does not like sitting on a big toilet for fear of falling in. Even if Link is grunting to poop he will stop when he is sitting on a small potty so that he can get up and play with the potty. Lincoln likes to hold in all pee and poop (yes, we had one solid accident) until we are out of sight. We had basically three accidents. I did put a diaper on him at bedtime. Because he is no longer sleeping in bed with us every night I do not want to wake up tomorrow seeing him playing in or with something he made himself.

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