Really, Is It All That Hard?

I so appreciate my mother-in-law. She taught her sons wonderful bathroom habits. I thought I was following suit when I potty trained our first two boys. (The third has yet to break the diaper habit.) I taught them to aim into the water, to flush, to wipe when you have to sit. And then, as any good mom does, I turned them loose to practice these habits on thier own. But somewhere along the way things went sadly awry.

One of our children refused to wipe for the longest time. I know this because of the evidence in the underwear AND the toilet. So this child also refused to flush. And yet, upon questioning, everyone flushes. How dare I accuse someone of NOT flushing. I had some nerve. I am proud to announce, however, that this child now both wipes and flushes. Thank goodness, because it could be embarrasing to send a child to college who lacks these skills.

But that is one child. There are others who still won't flush. I don't know if it's because when boys stand they think they've contributed nothing worthy of flushing or what. But I'm here to tell you that it should be flushed. Because after half a dozen times of such contributions things get quite aromatic. As in eyes watering, we're about to die of the fumes kind of aromatic. Please play with that shiny little handle on the back of the toilet that you must surely see as you're standing there facing it. It makes a fun sound, and water swirls around and goes down a tiny hole. It's fun, trust me.

I could possibly live with the lack of flushing because a simple flick of said handle takes care of it, and an open window and half a can of spray will take care of the smell. But it's the lack of aim that drives me insane. I've addressed this over and over. The results vary. I have one child who, with real tears in his eyes, will tell me that it's too hard to hit the toilet. I find this incredibly difficult to believe, but because of the tears I let the subject drop with a warning to be more careful. Please. Although my husband questioned this the other day and I told him that it's too hard for the kids to aim. The kids laughed at me and found it quite amusing that I would come up with that kind of reasoning. I mean, the toilet is huge and you'd have to be an idiot to miss it. It's no wonder I'm on the edge of insanity.

And then there are the things that my children do for the express purpose of making me wonder where on earth they were raised. One child wipes, but throws the toilet paper in the trash. What!?!! Trust me, I did not teach anyone that. And there's one child who stands up to wipe. Because when I was potty training I'd stand them up so that I could do the job easier. This child is incredibly literal and I had no idea that I was teaching this. At least they wipe now.

But my very favorite is the ever elusive high-pee. At a restaurant once Luke came back from the restroom and was so thrilled that he did a high-pee. We were quite clueless, and as we were with friends we tried dismissing this as quickly as possible. These people didn't have children and you can only imagine what they were thinking at this point anyway. We kind of forgot about this incident until several weeks later at home he said the same thing. We questioned it only to hear, "you know, when you pee high." We just couldn't grasp the situation. (Call us stupid.) I walked by the bathroom one day to see him nearly hitting the ceiling as he was standing at the potty. I suddenly had a clue. A clue what a high-pee was, and a clue why the bathroom perpetually reeked. I scrubbed the toilet, the floor, the tub, the shower curtain, the wall behind the toilet, the side of the under sink cabinet. I never thought to scrub the ceiling. I guess since Daddy was in the Air Force, the motto truly is Aim High.