Latrine Lunacy

Yesterday my youngest peed in the potty for the first time. She went twice. The first time she showed me immediately. The whole family commenced to acting like circus freaks: dancing, clapping, smiling and screaming. It was a scene straight out of Mardi Gras, minus the boobs and the cocktails. Cocktails would have been nice though and I’m certain they would have improved my dancing skills but, alas, that is neither here nor there. She peed, we behaved like lunatics. We flushed, clapped, washed our hands, distributed a lone skittle to the potty trainee and waited for round two.

Not one to sit and twiddle my thumbs, I decided to multi-task. I put the potty in front of the bathroom door, sat Hazard County (that’s #3’s nickname) on it and filled the bathtub with suds and warm water. Hazard Country remained a fixture on the pot while the older two got their baths. We played a short game of volley-diaper, a genius activity that involves volleying a balled up, dry-on-the-outside-and-taped-securely-shut wet diaper back and forth until said diaper hits the floor. The kids think it is the Best. Game. Ever. Judge away. Given the choice between a ball and a waded up diaper, my kids will always go with the latter. Much like a fart joke, there is something hilariously taboo about it.

Diaper Volley must have gotten pretty intense because we all forgot about Hazard County and round two. Snapped back to reality by the scene out of the corner of my eye and my daughter’s scream, “Look at Hazard County!”, I turned to see #3 crouched over the potty, both hands immersed in a good size puddle of pee. Right next to her was a small plastic container full of rubber hair bands, which she was adding, one by one, to the potty basin and pushing them around in her puddle. She was smiling, clearly proud.

There was a time in my life when this scene would have sent me running for the hills and vomiting in my mouth. Those days are a distant memory. Hazard County has taught me a lot about sweating the small stuff and, believe it or not, pushing mini rubber bands around in a puddle of pee qualifies as small stuff. A simple hand washing and flush of the toilet is all it takes to clean up that mess and, even though she may have some misgivings about what to do after she pees, #3 did pee and that, my friends, is something to celebrate.