As a mother of dragons.....I mean girls, I have a strong parenting philosophy about honesty when it comes to raising them. Especially as a woman, I want my girls to grow up wise. And wisdom requires honesty, education, and a willingness to take away innocence before the world does. I do not shy from it, and we talk about sex, bodies, periods, condoms, babies, and everything in my house. We are honest, respectful, and age appropriate, but nothing is taboo or awkward in our house. Knowledge is power.
But lets face it, while Lily is entering that young woman phase of life, Evie is still a little girl and most of the deep conversations are lost on her. That's okay.....she will know when its time, but every now and then we have a real gem of a story and I am here today to share it.
Just last month on the last day of school we all piled in the car and started our 3.5 hour journey to the mountains to visit Memaw and Papa. After leaving the Rim, and offering a bathroom stop, the consensus was that we could make it to Memaws before having to stop again. Silly us. 30 minutes later we had 2 little girls desperately wanting the bathroom. Thinking we were so close to Show Low and needed gas, we asked if they could wait, "SURE!" came the reply, "But we really have to go bad." Well Show Low became forever away and we were suddenly in the desperate stage to which Bob and I kept telling them, "We are almost there."
We finally pull into the first gas station before hitting Show Low and the girls desperately jump out of the car. It's not a fancy gas station. Its not a necessarily clean gas station. There is 1 bathroom that is 4 by 3 feet with a dirty toilet, one sink, and an overflowing trash can, but we made it.
As I followed my girls in 3 seconds later, I enter the restroom just as Lily is on the potty and poor Evie, no longer able to hold her gallon, opens the floodgates and pees all over herself and the floor. It was epic. Poor kid, no wonder she was miserable.
So there we all are, cramped in a tiny grime covered gas station bathroom with Lily over in the corner desperately crawling through the wall going, "Ew, Ew, Ew, don't let the pee touch me." I disrobed Evie (of course she had full leggings on) and then threw her up on top of the open toilet to straddle the seat half naked. I am currently standing in pee, but.....well that's motherhood.....So I tell the girls to stay put while I go get some towels or a mop.
Screw cleanliness, I walk through the gas station searching for the less than excited young attendant and boldly tell her that my daughter had an accident and I am going to need a mop or a towel to clean it up. She looks at me and then without a word walks over to the hotdog stand and manages to hand me a stack of roughly 10 napkins......napkins. At that point I literally almost laughed outloud, but decided against it because lets face it.....she doesn't have kids. Um, thank you for the 10 napkins.......I don't have the patience or time currently to describe to you how ludicrous this solution is.
So I head back to the bathroom, enter the runoff, and begin to attempt to clean up the disgusting bathroom with my 10 napkins (No, there weren't hand towels....they were out.....Yes I checked). There we are, naked Evie straddling the toilet, Lily desperately clinging to the wall trying to not get pee on her and me in my flip flops trying to move the saturated napkins soaking up roughly 10% of the mess, with my feet. Of course my shoe comes off in my maneuvering leaving me completely barefoot standing in my daughter's pee. So great. So I pick up my shoe, abandon all sense of dignity and lean down with my barehands to pick up all of the disintegrating pee soaked napkins. Once those were in the trash I had my hands and foot in the sink attempting to clean them (great visual).
At this point, Im pretty much over parenting, and as I listen to my eldest squeal, " Mom, that is just so gross, don't let it touch me. I can't believe you touched the pee. That is disgusting!" I let the truth bombs fly.
"Girlie, if this grosses you out, then don't ever have sex! If you don't want to have to pick up pee on a gas station floor with your barehands while standing in pee with your bare feet, while your children offer no help at all.....then honey, parenthood is not your bag. So if you don't want to do this.....never ever have sex!" Lily was quick with her "Okay Mom I am never having sex."
And Evie pipes in with.........What's insects?
I cannot make this stuff up y'all.
No comments:
Post a Comment