Beck Vass: Why does my son keep taking off his clothes?

You don't need to know about this but I feel like if I am disturbed by it everyone else should suffer too. Photo / Getty Images

We appear to be well and truly in the phallic stage of child rearing.

Our boy is two-and-a-half. Just like his sister at the same age (and even now when she's almost five), the kids just do not like clothes. The two of them just sort of appear naked, randomly.

Having a boy has taught me more than I ever needed to know about the male body.
Our son is a few months out of nappies. Of course, this brings with it some extra penis attention now that it's no longer hidden inside a nappy.

The kids were watching TV recently when I looked up to see him naked, once again with his attention on his favourite "toy".

The other night, he and his sister were fresh out of the shower. We were having our dinner, a My Food Bag Italian dish: pappardelle with sugo bugiardo (crude translation: flash spaghetti Bolognese). I mention this purely to point out the contrast of this fancier-than-usual meal and the shocking scene that unfolded next.

So there I am, sitting on the couch eating, with our boy beside me, still naked from his shower. He starts stealing the thick pappardelle pasta covered in a tomato-based sauce. It's reasonably greasy because it has minced bacon in it.

The kid has greasy orange-red pasta sauce around his mouth, down his chin, on his chest and all over his hands when I witness something I never needed to see in my life.

You don't need to know about it either but I feel like if I am disturbed by this everyone else should suffer too.

Kneeling on the couch, covered in greasy pasta sauce, my BABY BOY grabs his penis in his little fist, holds it then lets it go - and repeats.

I try to ignore it but then I glance sideways. Ugh, stop looking! I can't. It's like watching a lion eat a gazelle: You're trying to remind yourself it's just nature.

He continues with his simultaneous pasta-eating and penis-touching, not particularly focussed on either. I am trying to eat dinner as my sugo bugiardo-covered two-year-old does this beside me.

I call for my husband, trying to be discrete so our boy won't notice. I don't know why I cared for his privacy when I'm sharing this here. When my husband walked in, he looked confused until I tilted my head to one side. He glanced then looked away to hide his smile. He claims it wasn't one of pride, but I'm adamant it was.