The Chronicles of Toilet

I recognize that by choosing to have children I have forgone my right to privacy. And I, once a modest person who only reluctantly used public bathrooms for those lengthier visits, now find myself having to entertain (and distract) during WC visits. But a person can only take so much. During a recent visit to the facilities, Zoe, as usual, joined me. I like to distract her while I am performing, since I will sometimes get stage fright. But a small bit of air escaped and Zoe proceed to chant, “Fart. Fart,” a word I swear I did not teach her. A few minutes later she got distracted by the door, and started to swing it back and forth. Two things; first, two-year olds have a propensity for closing their fingers in doors, so I have to by very diligent (which can be distracting in a negative way). Second, our bathroom is very small and the door will hit me on the knee if I don’t watch out. Zoe, after playing with the door from inside the bathroom for a minute or so, stepped out and pulled the door almost completely closed behind her. Ahhh, privacy. I closed my eyes and rested my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands (I really don’t get much alone time). Then Zoe charged in like a bull, propelling the door ahead of her. Fortunately my head prevented the door from crashing into the wall. I decided I would save all my business for when the children are grown.

Here are a few of our current daily rituals.

• If we travel from one floor of the house to another Minnie Mouse must accompany us. Going down she gets tossed from the top step, and with every bounce I must say, “Ouch.” If I am not around than she does the ‘ouch’ part for me. On the way up Minnie has to hop, but I’ve streamlined the process by making her do one giant hop from the bottom to the top.
• At meal times Zoe has to get her own placemat from the drawer. It doesn’t matter if there is one at her seat, she will get a new one.
• When we pull on a pair of pants we have to let her pull up the front. It’s a concession on both our parts; ours so she is participating in the getting dressed process, and hers because she wants to do it herself but knows she will just get frustrated when both legs get stuck in one leg hole.
• I can lift her into the car, but she has to climb into her car seat herself. I can latch the bottom portion of the seatbelt, but she has to do the top. If you forget and latch it, it must be unlatched so she can do it herself.
• Onesie pajamas; we do the bottom two thirds of the zipper and she has to finish. Forget and you have to unzipper and start again.
• We now do animal teatime. Animal teatime consists of putting the small, plastic farm and zoo animals into the teacups. “I’ll have a cup of giraffe tea, please.” The sugar is a little person, so we usually have little girl sugar.
  

There are many more, but I’ll save them for another day when I can’t think of anything else to write about.


Don’t forget to pick up you copy of ‘Life with Zoe: The Second Year’ at my Blurb.com bookstore (www.blurb.com/user/store/dbglass)

You can also catch recent (and older) photos of Zoe at picasaweb.google.com/dbglass