There's a Hole in my Bucket

When I was about eight years old my aunt S. gave me a giant round Pelican Soap as a part of my birthday gift.  It was bright green and glorious....I left it in the bathroom, but never used it in the bath as I didn't want to ruin the shape and lines of my soapy little bird.  I kept it there for months, often admiring it while I used the facilities.   One day, several months later, our toilet backed up and we couldn't figure out why.  My parents tried the plunger, with no luck.  They asked us if we'd flushed anything that might have caused the damage.  Eventually my brother admitted that he had thrown my Pelican Soap into the toilet and flushed, until it got stuck.  My dad had to dismantle the toilet and sure enough he found my urine soaked bird...who had lost a lot of his shape, charm and luster.  When asked why he flushed the bird he simply responded, "I wanted to see what would happen."

Jack has only been given clearance as "potty trained" for a few months now.  To encourage independence we have a step stool that will allow the minions to use the washroom on their own.  Last week Jack was upstairs using the washroom and called up for me because his socks were wet and he was upset.  He had urinated all over the floor and on his socks directly in front of the toilet.  As I begrudgingly cleaned up the floor I asked him if he had missed.  He shook his head no.  I asked him why he chose to pee all over the floor directly in front of the toilet.  He responded quite simply, "I wanted to see what would happen."  I instructed him that all human waste should go inside the toilet and believed that he understood.  Boy was I wrong.

A few days later young Master Jack was upstairs in the bathroom.  I had determined that it would probably be best to keep a closer eye on his bathroom activities, so I was upstairs as well folding laundry.  As I walked by the bathroom I saw Jack standing, with his pants around his ankles, over a hole in the floor where the air vent cover is normally situated, preparing to urinate.
Me: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Jack: "Going potty."
"WE GO POTTY IN THE TOILET!" I yelled as I turned him around to face the toilet.
He proceeded to pee into the toilet.
"Why were you trying to pee into the floor vent?" I asked, exasperated.
"I wanted to see what would happen!"
"OUR ENTIRE HOUSE WOULD SMELL LIKE PEE.  IT WOULD BE HORRIBLE.  PLEASE DON'T PEE ANYWHERE BUT THE TOILET."

The time Jack wanted to see "what would happen" if he climbed into a cat carrier.

Later that night Chris chastised me for being so hard on the boy child.  He told me that Jack is newly potty trained, he was exploring things and I need to be more patient.  Then he told me a story of when he was in kindergarten and decided one week that it would be "neat" to collect his own urine in a plastic garbage can in the rarely used downstairs bathroom at his parent's house.  After several days of adding to his collection of "liquid gold" he invited a friend over and brought him downstairs to show him what he'd been up to.  His friend was horrified and immediately told Chris's mum about the garbage can full of pee.  His mother immediately disposed of and I'm guessing she monitored his bathroom activities for a few weeks. When I asked Chris what he learned from this exercise he simply replied, "that his friend was a snitch and not to trust him with secrets".  Not exactly the moral of the story I was looking for, but I suppose. Maybe this is a boy thing, I don't believe I ever peed on or in anything but my diaper, pants or the toilet.

That being said, both minions have been given a lecture that includes, if ever you want to try something to see "What would happen", just ask us and we'll tell you, we promise and please...please...please stop trying to make our house smell like pee.

The big question here is, what's more important...child independence or toilet locks?  If anyone gives either of my children giant novelty soaps I assure you they will be kept under lock and key.

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Livin' on the Edge

This weekend we went for a walk in James Gardens with my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, niece and nephew.  For a good portion of the walk my 3 year old niece insisted on walking beside/in front of our double stroller so she could hold onto Molly and Jack's hands while we walked.  A very sweet gesture, albeit highly dangerous as she kept on positioning herself in front of the wheels of the stroller, stopping suddenly and absently cutting off the stroller in pursuit of various distractions around the park.  It didn't matter how many times she was warned by me, her parents, how often it was suggested that she play ahead with her brother, or hold someone else's hand, she was determined to be close to her cousins.

Later that afternoon, mere hours following a conversation about how children are in constant pursuit of death, Molly decided it was a good idea to climb into the base of the Exersaucer (AKA The Console of Doom or COD) while her brother towered above her inside the COD in the middle of an uncontrollable jumping frenzy.  We pulled her out immediately shuddering at the thought of baby trampling and realized that the minions are at the age where they are completely dangerous to themselves and each other.  I finally understand when a friend of Chris's, and father of three, announced that children are like monkeys on acid.  I am aware that pre-parent me complained about rubber floored playgrounds and Darwinism, but the minions are now capable of turning pens into shivs and they head butt each other constantly, it's like prison here.

That being said, I decided to dedicate this week to baby-proofing the house.

Somewhat proud to say that this was not our handy-work!

Source: flickr.com via: storyvillegirl  on creativecommons.org

Baby-Proofing Completed

• Baby Gates Up - Special thanks to my father for taking painstaking efforts and 3 trips to our house, and the hardware store ensuring that the gates didn't damage our banisters and fit easily against the walls when the minions are asleep so we can run loads of laundry without killing ourselves.*
• Book Shelves Secured to the Wall**
• All medicines and highly toxic products moved to high shelves in washroom.***
• Inserted 13 plastic safety plugs in various outlets around the house, including one on the top of the electric stove, even though I know that if Molly or Jack manage to climb onto the stove unsupervised to electrocute themselves in the outlet that I've already failed about 5 times as a parent.
• Installed Safety Swivel Outlet covers for all outlets in the nursery.
• Installed regular outlet covers for all outlets in the house that didn't have covers.****
• Moved all super breakable stuff or things that we really like off of the bottom 2 shelves in the living room or over to my parent's house for a few years.
• Temperature on hot water turned down to 49 degrees C or 120 degrees F.

Baby-Proofing to Complete

• Eye hook on door to music room to protect Chris's records, musical instruments and prevent possible death by giant amplifier.
• Cabinet & Drawer latches in bathrooms and kitchen.
• Poison control on programmed onto speed dial, cell and house phone.
• Put special squeeze door handles on bathroom doors and office door.
• Figure out how to hide electric cords for floor lamps.

Questions I Have About Baby-proofing

• Are toilet locks really necessary?*****
• Are faucet protectors worth the cost/ necessary?  Should we get one for the bath that they'll never use?
• I read something about keeping one kitchen cupboard unlocked that contained things like plastic containers and bowls to allow the kids to explore, is it worth it to avoid total household lock-down?
• How do I teach the minions to be nice to my 14 year old cat, and that he has claws...so far he just moans in displeasure when they try to pet him (AKA pull his tail, ears, poke him in the eyes and squeeze his cat belly as hard as they can)?  Or is this a lesson that he'll teach them himself, much to our horror?
• What am I missing?
• They're totally going to still hurt themselves on something we haven't thought of, aren't they?

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*We're taking bets on the first adult to fall down the stairs over the baby gates if anyone is interested.
**I'm not sure if I am going to be thanking my father, who also secured the book shelves, based on his comments about how he hopes that I'm happy about book shelf location and how I may have to just "paint around them" or leave them be should we ever move.
***Thank you to our friend, PMM, for telling me the horrifying story about how although his mother hid, locked and stacked fermentation tablets in the highest possible cabinet of the kitchen that he still managed to get them and ingest them while she was in the washroom because he thought they were scotch mints.
****Yes, we've been in the house for over 3 years now and this was still outstanding until today. Does it make it any less savage that most of these plug outlets are partially covered by furniture or that I had purchased the plug plate covers in August while I was still pregnant and that they've sat in a plastic bag on our back porch ever since waiting to be installed?
 *****Says the woman who grew up in the house with plumbing emergencies from my brother flushing a novelty over-sized Toucan Soap down the toilet and a dog who dumped his Kong chew toy down the toilet.