Light Pants

Occasionally, Diana will ask why I haven’t written about a favorite Hamann family anecdote. Something she feels is prime blog-worthy material. Usually, it’s because the story starts and ends with, “Oh, my gosh this was soooo cute.”

But every once and a while she reminds me of a perfectly quintessential boy story that simply must be told, no matter how many months ago it occurred.

So here is a soon to be classic Elijah story.

Remember when he was so damned sick we had to take him to the hospital? Diana stayed with him while I pretended to watch Luca at our house but really raided our wine cabinet.

Apparently, the medical TV shows are accurate. At one point in the evening, a troop of interns marched into Eli’s room to discuss his “case.” As you can imagine, this pleased Eli to no end. A bunch of adults asking him questions and laughing at his every answer? Sign him up.

A lot of these future Porsche owners had toys hanging around their necks. They were these kind of flashlight-shaped things that spun around and lit up when you pressed a button. I think they used this to distract children from the ear poking/suppository inserting/IV injecting unpleasantness that they deal with on a daily basis.

As one fresh faced intern waxed poetic about not knowing what the heck was wrong with Elijah, our son pointed at the toy and said, “I want that.” Smartly, the intern obliged.

As this poor twentysomething attempted to impress his superiors, Eli yanked his pants open, displaying to the group that he had eschewed underpants this day. As the interns tried not to look at his genitals, Elijah dropped the toy into his pants.

The intern muttered, “I guess I won’t be asking for that back…” And yet, at the end of the session, he did ask for it back. I guess he had a lot of faith in the Evanston hospital’s Purel supply. And a lot of faith in Diana’s ability to explain to my son why an intern would want his penisy toy.