Piglet Pie: Umbilicality

Last night I remarked to Owen that my belly button "felt kinda weird." Extra squishy on the edges. My belly button's been pretty weird for months now, slowly spreading outwards, getting shallower and shallower. But last night it was definitely different.

This morning I woke to discover that the top half of my belly button has popped out. This is hard to describe, but it's like a bit of a bump or lip instead of a dent. I actually tried to take a photo of it this morning, but then I didn't download it to the computer. If it looks good later, I'll share it. Or maybe I'll wait a day and see if the rest pops out.

I have a friend here in grad school who has a phobia of belly buttons. Seriously, a phobia. Not a dislike, not an aversion, but an out and out FEAR of belly buttons. He thinks it stemmed from seeing a newborn with the stump still attached when he was very little. Regardless, he's completely scarred by it, can't touch his own or anyone else's and won't let anyone touch much of his belly area for fear they'll get too close. He told me a story of a former roommate who'd spilled a smoothie on her shirt all over her belly. She came home and announced, "my belly button leaked!" It made my friend run to the bathroom and throw up.

I, on the other hand, find my belly button endlessly fascinating, and lately have a hard time not playing with it, as it's so prominent and squishy. My nephew Simon had an umbilical hernia for the first few years of his life, and his belly button took the word "squishy" to whole new levels. It poked way far out but Simon could squash it all the way into an innie if he wanted to, which he did, often, and which I can't blame him for, because I would have too if mine did that. He had surgery to fix it when he was about four-ish and now he has a regular ole belly button.

For the record, Simon's belly button was named "Shelly" (because, as he announced with a look of surprise at the fact that I couldn't see how obvious a name it was) it looked like a shell. Trevor's was named "Rolly." Owen and I had two hermit crabs which we named Rolly and Shelly after our nephews' umbilicial dents. Shelly died after an unfortunate Neighbor Stopped Watering The Crabs While We Were On Vacation incident. Rolly stuck around a good while longer, through the acquisition of two more crabs, Scott and Tim. Eventually, Scott proved the Alpha Crab and kicked Rolly out of his cool purple shell, condemning him to an embarrassing "my little white crab ass is showing" death near the water dish.

But all that was just to say...my belly button's popping. Hot damn.