Sunday, January 27, 2008

Public Potty Terror

I decided while my wife was out of town I would take my girls to dinner and shopping at the mall. I have a three year old and a one year old.

I let the 3 year old decide what we were going to eat for dinner. So we had mall sushi, rice, and noodles. I'm always amazed that my girls will eat sushi, especially sushi wrapped in seaweed. I consider seaweed a vegetable. During dinner my daughter uttered the words I have feared hearing in a public place every since she became potty trained. “Daddy, potty.”

Panic set in. After seconds of utter terror, I surveyed the situation quickly. Not wanting to cause my own Amber Alter, I picked up the youngest dripping with sea weed and off to find a place to "potty".

Public restrooms can be a festering peltry dish of terror for someone like me. However, when your oldest daughter is dancing around like the ground is on fire there is not time to worry about the types of microbial invaders which are waiting to attack.

I have never been so thankful to find a bathroom empty, with a huge handicap stall. I always feel funny about using the handicap stall, but today I did not care. I opened the door, looked around - clean enough and now the real dilemma.

Help a 3 year old go potty while you are holding a 1 year old away from the potty. I sat the one year old down. Balancing on one foot I blocked her way from putting her hands in the potty with my leg. I must say the acrobatics displayed were envious of any Chevy Chase Saturday Night Live skit.

As I washed 3 sets of hands. I had some flash forward thoughts of other words I will dread. Daddy can you buy me some feminine products.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cute story. Doesn't your wife require you to carry hand sanitizer and loads of baby wipes at all times?

Todd said...

Thank goodness for "family bathrooms" that are popping up everywhere. Learn the location of these and you will be one lucky dad when the next potty emergency comes.

They especially come in handy at Disneyland.