Bathroom Chores

Children love the bathroom only when you’re in it.  If they need to use the bathroom for themselves, they’d rather not enter.  It’s only when you’re missing and doing something for yourself – without them – do they feel the need to be involved.  We all know this, right?  Kids, God bless them.  They’re not only nosy, but they’re also self-absorbed little piss-ants.

For the most part, I let this happen with a few limitations.  We have household policies on both door closing (knock to enter), and locked doors (we say we don’t, but we do).  For instance, we close the door when we want Privacy, and Doug and I only lock it when Ollie’s being Unreasonable and Forceful.  If Ollie locks the door in a tantrum, we shout that We Don’t Lock Doors In This House! (Parenthood in some cases = Hypocrisy).  If someone knocks on the closed door politely, we have the option to allow them to enter or not.  My husband will not let Ollie open a closed door under any circumstances because he teaches Boundaries, and I let him enter only if I’m not squeezing something out or paying attention to my vagina because I like to think I’m teaching Relaxation and Acceptance.

A good example of this phenomenon is when I’m in the shower.  I’m usually in the shower after Doug has left for work, which means that Ollie has a) finished breakfast and has been asked to put away his dishes, b) put away his dishes and has been asked to put on clothes, c) done all these things and is now looking for someone to play with, d) done all these things and is now looking for something to do, or in most cases e) has not done / does not want to do any of the things we asked him to do and is now realizing that the adults are gone, he has no one to play with, he is bored and needs attention.  I generally close the door when I get in the shower with the belief that it will be open again in a few moments.  It is generally at this time when Ollie decides that he needs to poop. 

I’ve mentioned how we sing or recite poetry together when I’m showering and he’s on the toilet.  The two of us are chock-full of Culture especially where Shel Silverstein is concerned.  When he finishes, he wipes the poop out of his butt with the same kind of lackluster hand wave one gives to an acquaintance with whom they don’t want to start a convo.  After he has flushed repeatedly like a business executive in a hurry on the elevator, washed his hands and given the towel up for dead in the wet ring around the sink, he turns his attention back to me.  Then it’s either active motion time or quickfire Q&A time.

Oliver doesn’t like to be still.  I remember one time when Ollie was smaller, I was trying to dress him and my sister couldn’t stop laughing.  I had to keep grabbing him LITERALLY out of the air because he was jumping all around like that SNL skit where Mike Myers is tied up to the play structure and drags it home.  If Active Motion time sets in, I try to entice him out of the bathroom with promises of reading time and five minutes of play-doh after my personal hygiene regimen is complete.  I’m not always successful though, and in the past my failures have led to antics such as my dirty underwear being thrown in the shower because underwear = hysterical or being plunged into darkness because We Turn Off All Lights When We Leave A Room. 

If Quickfire Q&A strikes his fancy, he’ll sit on the toilet, dangle his legs and together we’ll figure out the mysteries of the world.  That was the case this morning, wherein our conversation went like this:

Ollie: Mama?  Do cheetahs run faster than The Flash?
Me: Well…that’s a good question.  Cheetahs do run fast.  But he wouldn’t be a superhero if something else ran faster, would he?  I think The Flash runs faster than a cheetah.
Ollie: Do velociraptors run faster than The Flash?
Me: Hm.  If velociraptors were still alive, I think that even though they may not run as fast as The Flash, they may run a farther distance because they’re much bigger than the Flash and their legs are longer.
Ollie: Oh.  Someday can we go to a dinosaur park or museum?
Me: Yeah, I think we can go to a museum.
Ollie: How do science-tists know how to put dinosaur bones back together?
Me: Well, they have computers that help them know what bones are what – like leg bone or arm bone – and they put them back that way.
Ollie: Oh.  When you get out can we have a Toothbrushing Party?

A Toothbrushing Party is a way I reward Ollie for good behavior.  A Toothbrushing Party is when we dance and sing while brushing our teeth.  Ollie abhors brushing his teeth.  He hasn’t sent his toothbrush careening into the toilet like another kid I know, but he has tantrums just about every morning and every evening when asked to brush his teeth.  If we do a Toothbrushing Party, he stays at the sink and does his job as long as the song lasts.  The only thing is that now Ollie can’t brush his teeth unless it’s to the song, so it’s a bit of a Catch-22.  Here it is for those who are DYING to read it:

It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we dance, dance, dance
It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we wiggle in our pants, pants.

It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we kick our feet
It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we snap to the beat

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we brush our teeth
It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we get rid of all the beef

It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we sing our song
It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we all get along

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we spit in the drain
It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we dance with MC Blaine

It’s a Toothbrushing Party

Where we go the extra mile
It’s a Toothbrushing Party
Where we all like our smiles

It’s a Toothbrushing Party
And now we’re done
It’s a Toothbrushing Party
And we all had fun!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  Yeah, yeah, yeah!

I find that if I keep making up rhymes, brushing takes the dentist-recommended amount of time.  It’s also really easy to make the song end faster if it’s lasting way too long and I just want the kid to Go To Bed Already.  All the cavities he gets or doesn’t get are completely up to me and my performance skills, really.  It can be quite daunting if you think about it, so I don’t think about it.

To be honest, I’m kind of enjoying the bathroom sharing time.  I know that it won't last long. In a little time, he won’t be so scared of the basement spiders and will use the bathroom downstairs.  In a little more time, he won’t want to share the bathroom with me because he’ll find me “gross.”  In a little more time after that, he’ll lock the bathroom door himself because he’ll have his own Personal Hygiene Routine (and no one’s sharing the bathroom with that).  Shoot, no one’s going to want to share a house with that.  Kids, God bless them.  They’ll never grow out of their curiosity, but they'll focus it elsewhere.  Some things won't change, however - they’ll always be self-absorbed little piss-ants, the sweeties.