Whitney Williams - The trouble with little boys

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 15th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

What busy mom of young boys can’t relate to this? Just when you think you have a moment for yourself, you don’t. WORLD commentator Whitney Williams knows all about it.

WHITNEY WILLIAMS, COMMENTATOR: There’s never a good time for me to whiten my teeth, it seems. I can almost bet that right when I paint my chompers and put in the at-home tray, my kids will demand an explanation of the incarnation or ask me a question that simply can’t be answered with a head-shake: “Does God have legs?” “Why do we have belly buttons?” or the latest: “Why did God plan for Jesus to be on the earth for only a short short time instead of a long, long time?”

I thought this day would be different.

AUDIO: [Sound of bike bells, boys riding]

The boys were riding their new Christmas bikes out on the driveway. Now was my chance! I scurried to the bathroom, pulled my lips away from my teeth, brushed on the magic formula, plugged the tray’s power cord into the bottom of my phone, and then shoved the glowing blue apparatus into my mouth.

Not two minutes into my 30-minute teeth whitening session, my youngest walks into the house, wailing, with a pop knot on his head big enough to hitch a horse to—Roy D. Mercer anyone? Blood covered his face and streamed down onto his new winter coat.

I sucked the saliva off of my whitening device and set it on the kitchen counter. My boy needed more than an empathetic mime.

“It’s gonna be OK, baby.” I tell him, as I pull him close. And I’m fairly certain it will be. When it comes to head wounds, I’ve learned “better out than in” and “it’s a good sign if they cry right away,” so I remain calm and run him a warm bath. As his wails slowly turn to whimpers, I follow the blood trail to the scene of the incident and question the two witnesses. Apparently, my son’s bicycle decided to ditch its front wheel mid-ride.

AUDIO: [Sounds from Walmart]

Within the hour, the four of us are on the helmet aisle at Walmart—my twins choose black helmets with neon green light up mohawks.

As we make our way to the checkout line, my injured son sits in the buggy, dipping his head each time we pass a fellow shopper. By this time it looks like he has a golf ball lodged in his forehead.

“I don’t want people to see how awful I look,” he told me, and I felt it along with him, imagining the accusations: “Nice timing on the helmet, Super mom.” “You let your kids out in the driveway without supervision?” I was half tempted in that moment to just lay it all out, right there in the Walmart: “Yeah! And my kids get screen time every day, too!” But I refrained.

“We all get bumps and bruises, baby,” I told him, as I passed him a bag of frozen fish sticks for the swelling.

Those people with blindingly white teeth that I see on social media must not have little boys.

AUDIO: [Bike bell]

I’m Whitney Williams.

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