Monday, March 18, 2013

Why I can't leave Leah alone in the bathroom

So in my last post I mention that next time I would write about why I hopefully have learned that I can't leave Leah alone in the bathroom.  It isn't because she locks the door behind her, or because she gets into the toilet paper ( I have accepted that) or even because she enjoys playing in the toilet (I have also accepted that).  No, it's because I don't know what she is going to do.  A few days ago, I was getting the girl's bath ready - warm water, lots of bubbles and I started a conversation with my husband - Grace was suppose to be getting ready for her bath and Leah was crawling bare bummed towards the bathroom.  I thought, this is the best time to talk with my husband!  The bath time routine in my house is that I do the baths while my husband cleans up the kitchen (I know I am very lucky, sometimes he cooks too!) and during bath time, I read a few books to my girls as they relax (aka try to swim and get as much water on the floor as possible) and on this night "Franklin Fibs" and "Franklin's New Friend" were waiting on a stool with the towels in the bathroom.  While talking with my husband, I could hear Leah opening and closing the toilet seat and putting toys into the water so I assumed that when I returned to the bathroom the tub would be filled with toys and Leah would be busy splashing in the toilet. But no, that's not what I found.  When I got back into the bathroom what I found was that Leah had pooped on the floor, was playing with it or trying to put it into the toilet and "Franklin Fibs" was floating in the tub.  It's was a little bit of a nice change since what happens more than I would like it too is that Leah poops in the tub and I guess what I found was nicer than Leah playing with the "Franklin Fibs" book in the toilet and her poop floating in the tub.
This isn't the first time, nor do I think it will be the last, that one of my children had tossed a book into the bath.  When Grace was around Leah's age she toss "Horton Hears A Who" into the tub while she was waiting to get in and I had stepped out to get a towel.  (I'm sure many of you are asking, why do you leave your kids alone in the bathroom, why not get everything ready before hand so that you never have to leave.  And my answer is if I got everything ready before hand, I would never get to eat dinner because I usually finished around the same time as Grace since I spend most of dinner trying to casually remind my oldest that while I am sure it really is the last thing she has to tell me, she more importantly needs to eat.  I also get the bath ready right after dinner because Leah enjoys watching the tub fill up and if I leave her in her highchair, even though my husband is cleaning the kitchen, she will start to scream because she wants to be wherever Grace and I are.  Plus, if I got the bath ready ahead of time, then what would I write about?)
So anyway, Grace tossed Horton (which was a library book too I should add) into the bath one time and I spent the next few days trying to get the pages flat again - my efforts didn't work and now we own a very wavy "Horton Hears a Who".  Thankfully "Franklin Fibs" was our own copy and I was starting to think it needed a little volume.
I think it's pretty interesting how my parenting has changed- when Grace tossed 'Horton' into her bath, I kind of freaked out a bit. I didn't know what was going to happen - would I be banned from the library, would I be forever known as the parent would didn't police her child while looking at library book, would Grace do this to all the books and grow up hating and abusing literature?  Of course I over reacted and none of that happened.  So when it was Leah's turn to find out what happens when you put a book into water, I calmly fished it out, rolled it into a towel, peeled the pages apart and put face clothes in between them and hoped for the best.  Same thing happens when my youngest poops in the tub, Grace scoops out the poop and bath is declared over, we wash our hands, I clean the tub and we head off the bed.  I kind of feel bad for Leah because she is missing out on the reaction that Grace got.  I feel bad for Grace a bit too because it might seem that Leah can do no harm, except when she starts to scream or is left alone in the bathroom.

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