lite & lucid

Nothing makes you feel like you’re failing at parenthood like taking your kids into a public restroom.

I recently drove my kids about 6 hours south to Middle Earth for a weekend visit with my family. I was driving solo with my 3 and 4 year old boys, nothing unusual as I’ve made this trip a hundred times before by myself. What was unusual is we somehow managed to make only 1 pit stop half way through the trip for gas and a bathroom break.

As I pulled up to the gas pump I was mentally preparing myself for a quick, efficient stop and trying to lay out a game plan with the boys. I parked the car, got the gas going and opened the back doors of TheBigDamnTanMomVan to reveal the catastrophe that 2 1/2 hours of handing snacks blindly to the back seat had created. It looked like a powdered cheese factory had exploded over their little fingers and faces. I managed to find one barely wet wipe and did the best I could to remove the evidence of the unhealthy snacks I fed my children for the sake of peace in the car. Once the wipe reached maximum cheese holding capacity and I was merely moving the cheese around their faces, I gave up the good fight. We were going to look shabby, but I really had to pee and that was outweighing my need to care about our appearance. I unbuckled the kids, took hold of their little cheesy hands and marched authoritatively toward the building with a heightened sense of urgency as one whose bladder had been weakened by child birth.

Holding the hands of two little ones who’ve been sedentary in a car for a few hours and trying to guide them in the general direction of the restrooms, maneuvering about aisles and strangers was a great way to test the strength and endurance of my patience. At one point we were heading down an aisle straight at a young women when the boys each decided to pull my arms in opposite directions making our combined wingspan a ghastly 32 feet. We were at a stale mate, her trying to get past me and me trying to pull my children closer to my body. After several awkward seconds I finally tried to break the tension and said “Red Rover, Red Rover, we dare YOU to come over!”. Her response was to turn around and try another aisle.

We continued on a few feet where we met a kind looking man who smiled at me, pointed at Bryce and asked, “How old is he?” Smiling in return I replied, “He’s 4.” The gentlemen’s face fell in astonishment and he mumbled, “He’s as big as my 8 year old.” Not having the time or bladder capacity to explain that my husband is 6’7″ and I’m the runt of my family, I just shrugged and continued toward the bathroom.

We reached the blessed restrooms that the signs all promised and I had a new appreciation for Moses and his journey to the Promised Land. As I pushed the bathroom door open my daily persona of relaxed, calm, mediocre mom turned quickly into one of a paranoid, germaphobic, helicopter mom. I immediately started repeating a chant in a high pitched voice that went something like, “Okay, don’t touch anything! Everything is yucky! Don’t touch! Don’t touch!”. The bathroom floor and walls were completely tiled making every tiny noise ricochet into a sonic boom. For Gavin, who’s tender 3 year old heart hates loud noises, this was hell. He immediately clung as hard as he could to my leg. Bryce is on the other end of the spectrum and has no fear, he dropped my hand and walked right up to a stall. I suddenly found myself in a Sofie’s Choice situation. There wasn’t a stall big enough for all three of us to fit into without being forced to touch some compromising surfaces. Should I assist one child in the bathroom while the other one remains unsupervised to roam about or let one go into the stall alone touching all kinds of things making him forever unclean? I glanced down at Gavin whose face registered pure fear and grip on my leg was only getting tighter, my choice was made for me. I let Bryce go into a stall on his own, but before I did I slowly repeated my “Don’t Touch Anything” chant and instructed him to keep the door open (least he lock the door and crawl out from under the stall forcing me to retrace his steps to undo his works). I then took Gavin into the neighboring stall and focused intently on him so as to block out any thought of things Bryce was touching in his stall. Gavin stood nervously before the potty, took aim and started peeing at the exact moment the motion sensor picked up his movements and triggered the automatic flush feature. He responded the same way he does when we go through the car wash. He covered his ears with both hands and started crying, forcing me to man the tricky task of aiming for him. As the flushing and the crying died down I heard a familiar voice in the neighboring stall say, “Hi! I’m Bryce. I’m poopin. I four years old.” I looked over my shoulder to see a women with an amused expression on her face. I started to apologize but she cut me off and simply stated, “I have 4 children.” Thank God for understanding mothers.

With the potty portion of our show completed, we migrated to the sink where I lathered everyone’s arms up to their elbows simulating the scrub room scene of every medical show I’ve ever seen. Bryce then thrust his hands under the automatic hand dryer that ran for a solid 30 seconds at a decibel just shy of breaking the sound barrier. This, of course, caused Gavin great psychological distress as he clasped his soaking wet hands over his ears and resumed screaming. I didn’t make him dry his hands as the bathroom break had already damaged him enough that he may need therapy.

Giving myself a moment to gather whatever strength and dignity I had left, I grabbed both boy’s hands and headed out the door and back to the TheBigDamnTanMomVan. I got everyone buckled up, cleaned out a couple pounds of snack debris from the back seat (which also resulted in me finding 3 socks plus 1 fossilized chicken nugget…I’d be ashamed if I had the energy) and climbed back into the drivers seat. I buckled in, adjusted the rear view mirror to see the boys and said, “Well that went well, huh?”

Gavin turned his splotchy red face and looked blankly at me through tear swollen eyes. Bryce gave me the thumbs up and said, “Mom? I so proud of you!”
As I readjusted the mirror I whispered, “Ya? I’m proud of me too.”