Singing The Potty Time Blues

As you all know (or at least you should by now, I post about it way too much here) Bryce is now potty trained. He has been doing very well and very rarely has accidents. He does still have issues with keeping the pee in the potty, especially at school where they don’t have the splash guard things on the seat, but that is really beyond his control, so we don’t consider on-the-potty-accidents as true accidents. Anyway…

The worst part about having two little kids out of diapers is the amount of time I spend in public restrooms. Blech. I couldn’t wait for the day to come when my kids could feed themselves at a restaurant so that I could eat my food while it was still hot, and now I’m back to eating cold food again because I spend the entire dinner in the bathroom. It never fails. As soon as our dinner gets to the table, someone has to pee. When I bring that kid back, inevitably the other one has to go. And Heaven forbid if one of them has to poop! You might as well put my dinner in a to-go box.

Along with eating cold food, I have to stop in the middle of shopping trips, and I have missed the “Happy Birthday” song at birthday parties. Seriously, I feel like if we’re out somewhere, I am always in the bathroom.

Far worse than the time aspect, though, is the fact that public restrooms are disgusting. Men’s restrooms are generally worse than women’s, so that is why I usually take the kids if we are all out together. I try so hard to keep my kids from touching the toilets. If those liners are available, I always use those, and if not, I wipe the toilet seat off and sometimes even line it with toilet paper like my mom used to do. I feel like people think I am in there abusing my kids because of all of the yelling I do. “Don’t touch the toilet!” “Gross! Don’t touch your face after touching the toilet!” “No! Don’t open the sanitary napkin disposal!” “Stop trying to look in the toilet!” If you’re a parent, surely you understand.

Last weekend we were driving home from an event and Bryce said he had to go potty. We got off on the next exit and stopped at the nearest public restroom that wasn’t at a gas station. We walked quickly into Burger King where it felt like the A/C wasn’t working. Needless to say, the bathroom was super hot. We walked into the handicapped stall first because of the size, but there was poop all over the side of the toilet. Seriously, how does that even happen? We ended up in the smaller stall where the two of us could barely fit.

I wiped off the toilet seat first. Luckily it didn’t seem too disgusting. I took Bryce’s shorts and undies off like I always do, all while holding him up and wrestling them over his shoes, and finally got him situated on the potty. (I take his shorts off so he can open his legs and “aim” down in the bowl, so that I don’t get peed on.) I was holding him up while he peed, but then he said he had to poop. Great. Five minutes went by and he was finally finished, so I reached for the toilet paper.

Well, the toilet paper must have been a brand new roll that obviously wasn’t a perfect circle, because it would not come out. I had to stick my arm up in the dispenser thing and roll it, while I pulled on it with the other hand. That meant that I had to let go of Bryce. As soon as I did, there went his hands, right between his legs with a death grip on the part of the bowl that isn’t covered by the seat. The next thing I know, the kid is rubbing his eye.

OH MY GOD BRYCE STOP TOUCHING YOUR FACE!

Then he touched his nose.

STOP IT! DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!

By this time, he’s crying because I scared him, and I’m about to throw up thinking about all of the nastiness that is on his face. He keeps yelling “Mommy, no, you’re scaring me” and at this point, I figure the employees probably think I’m in there beating my kid.

I got him wiped and dressed and got out of that stall as soon as I could. We scrubbed our hands, and by the time we got back to the car, he had stopped crying, but I still wanted to barf. I felt like I needed to rinse his eyes out with bleach or something. It was awful.

That night, I saw a review for PottyCovers on another blog. I immediately ordered two packages from Amazon, and they cannot get here soon enough!

I always laugh at those parents that carry little potty chairs around in their cars. But maybe they should be the ones laughing at me.