Bored and in need of a release from Sunday boredom we decided to go to Walmart and shop around. We were not in need of any thing in particular but sometimes just wandering around the giant store can be fun within itself. The boys like to look at the fish tanks building their imaginary aquariums , my husband likes to look at plants for his garden, and I like to see if anything is available at a deep discount. (I also work there but it is fun to walk around the store, as I usually only see the Pharmacy and the break room when I am there)
The trip was going great, we passed by he toy aisle without a peep. We perused the rows of pastel colored Easter candies and had an educational discussion about how peeps are made. Then came the words I dread whenever I go anywhere with the children, "Mommy I have to go Potty!"
I look at Colton trying to decide if it can wait or if it is a potty emergency, the look of distress on his small face and the Micheal Jacksonesque crotch dance assure me it is in fact an emergency. Then Cody chimes in "Me too! me too! I got to go potty!" Brian is far away entranced in the fishing equipment dreaming of brown and rainbow trout. I will have to go this one alone.
Perhaps if I had girls this would not be such a source of strife for me but I have three boys and the potty situation has gotten precarious. See at five and a half (a tall five) he is looking stranger and stranger in the ladies bathroom. But I do not trust him in the men's restroom alone, this was allowed once and some poor man had to inform me that he was trying to wash his hands in the urinal. When I go out with my sister I can borrow Joshua my incredible nephew and he takes care of the potty breaks with ease. Joshua is like the best kid ever he is polite, funny, nice, and incredibly understanding of his much younger cousins. You ask Joshua to take Colton or Cody to the bathroom and he does not even bat an eyelash he leads them into the men's restroom and supervises the visit with patience way beyond his nine years.
Alas when I do not have my husband or Joshua around I must lead them into the ladies room and weather the increasingly dirty looks. It happens most often with older ladies, and I do not blame them, they have earned their right to go to the Walmart bathroom and be assaulted by the sight of a boy wondering out of the stall pants around ankles, underwear half on ,exclaiming loudly that he did, in fact ,just poop. The worst his when I to half to relive my bladder and I have Cullen with me. If he would wait quietly in the stall with me and wait for me to finish it would be fine. Cullen likes to crawl under the stall while I am indisposed and then run up and down the length of the bathroom squealing loudly.
Once a lady open the door to the bathroom saw Cullen running and squealing, heard Cody calling wipe my butt, and Colton walking out of the stall half exposed and decided perhaps her bladder did not have to be vacated after all. At one point they had installed little baby seats with straps into the stalls of handicapped restrooms. I found these to be very useful after they were rubbed down with copious amounts of sanitizer. The last few of these I have encountered have their straps removed and have been rendered useless. Perhaps to many other mothers had to empty their pocket sanitizers before they felt safe using them.
Colton has also developed the habit of not washing his hand and wanting to use sanitizer in lieu of soap and water. Once at a fair, or the Southern Women s show, or something where there are large amounts of women vying for a small amount of toilets, this happened. We had waited for a good thirty minutes to use the bathroom facilities.Colton had begun to cry and whimper softly, his face was changing from pink, to red, to an ugly puce shade. Cody was holding himself and doing an odd dance that would not have been out of place in a circa 1980s Madonna video. As for myself I had not had to pee that bad since I was nine months pregnant and had unwisely drank and entire gallon of green tea (don't judge me I was pregnant all three times in August). There were three stalls for roughly 50 women, I had to use all three of these stalls for my brood, we all had to go equally bad, it was like Sophie's Choice only with bladders. Already receiving dirty looks for using all three of the available toilets ( there must be some sort of mass bathroom code I am unaware of because I heard several woman whisper to each other "All three stalls!, I never!" but what the heck would you do in a situation like that?) I was loath to use the sinks, which were occupied by woman in various stages of primping/waiting to use the toilet. Colton who is always quite the stickler for the rules said "Mommy tell that lady (which lady I do not know there were three) to move so I can wash my hands". The lady turned around slowly in a move most often seen in horror films and preceded to give me a look that quite literally gave credence to "if looks could kill". Torn between wanting to give the lady a piece of my mind, and just wanting to get the flip put of there, I squirted a large dollop of sanitizer on each hand and said loudly "Just use the sanitizer sweetie, Some people think sinks are just for fixing bad haircuts" (she hand one of those Kate plus eight hair dos that were in vogue at the time.) then I ran out of there as quick as my legs toting two small boys could go. Colton has been fixed on sanitizer ever since, she must of traumatized him, later when he has an irrational fear of asymmetrical haircuts only I will be able to tell him why.
So I end with a question how old is too old to follow mommy in the bathroom? Is i different for every child? Do you let your boys go it alone in the mens?
