Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Potty Paranoia

Even at the age of 2, it is quite easy to see where Amelia gets her tendencies. Most of her negative ones come from me. (And everyone thought I was such a good little boy.)

The latest is an aversion to potties in public places. Not potties in general, which is what my aversion was. (I absolutely would NOT go in public places, much to the detriment of my intestinal integrity. In fact, to digress, one of my worst - and most recurring - nightmares was having to go to the bathroom in a place where there were no doors on the stalls - with literally 30 or 40 johns lined up in a row.)

No, little Mia's problem comes from another of my childhood worries - fear of loud noises. The trend in most public places is for automatic toilets. A grand idea, in most cases. Not when it comes to little children. We've been able to assuage her fears by quickly moving her away from the toilet (in the 1/2 second before it flushes on its own). The response from the little one (mimicking what she's heard us say numerous times) is often: "That's not so bad."

But I think I may have traumatized her for good on Monday night. Dulles Town Center, to its credit, has a nice little family restroom, with a side-by-side big toilet and mini-kid toilet (flashback to my nightmare!). I sat Mia on the little one, she took care of necessities, and, as she is wont to do, she took her time to make sure she was finished (good little kid). Unfortunately, the kiddie toilet didn't appreciate the delay (or misinterpreted her "shifting" on the seat to a disembarkment) - and flushed AS SHE WAS STILL SITTING ON IT!!!  Ohhhh, you'd have thought the world had come to an end. Forget worries of bare feet on bathroom floors, forget fears of floating diseases. She was off that thing in a heartbeat.

I just have to ask: what engineer/interior designer thinks that having an automatic toilet for kids is a good idea?? Apparently, someone who has never had a child, or had to take a child to the bathroom.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We solved this problem by hanging a piece of toilet paper over the sensor.