B will be 2 next month. While we haven't officially started full-on potty training, we do have a potty chair - one of those nice fancy ones that has the removable seat that you can fit on a regular toilet, and when the lid is down, it also functions as a foot stool. (Sidebar: who came up with the word potty anyway? It's a silly word that makes me cringe. We once had a temp at work who was probably around my age that would always announce to everyone around her that she needed to go to the potty. Really??? First, why announce it? And second, unless you are a toddler or talking to a toddler, there is no reason to use the word potty. But I digress ...). Anyway, the potty chair gets used more as a foot stool so far, and B has an obsession with washing his hands. Well, I think it's more about playing in the water, but he knows that we encourage the hand washing, so he uses that as his rouse to actually play in the water. So anytime you head to the bathroom, he follows right behind like any normal toddler does, grabs his potty chair, drops it down in front of the sink and stands on it babbling until you turn on the water. When you're in a hurry, this gets annoying. But if you don't comply, a toddler temper tantrum ensues. So you choose the lesser of two evils most days.
Fortunately for us, we have two bathrooms - a full bathroom in the hallway and a half bath in our bedroom. Me, being the super smart mommy that I am, figured out that if I'm in a hurry, the easiest thing to do is venture into the half bath. There's no potty chair in there so things go fairly quickly. But apparently my kid is smart.
This morning, I'm in one of those hurries and not in the mood to deal with a screaming toddler who is having a temper tantrum in the hall because I won't let him "wash his hands." So I head to the half bath, and as usual, he follows me right in. He babbles something, points at the sink, turns around and heads out. Woot woot! I've won ....
... until about 25 seconds later when he heads back into the half bath, carrying that blasted potty chair from the other bathroom, plops it down in front of the sink, climbs up on it and starts his babbling. I can't help but laugh. And I can't help but comply with his incoherent demands - after all, he went through all that effort to figure out that's what he needed to do and to a certain extent, I feel like he should be rewarded for being so creative (well, for being only two, I think he was rather creative to figure that out). So I took the extra few minutes, turned on the water, let him wash and dry his hands, and he was satisfied and moved on. I guess from now on, if I use the second bathroom, I'll just have to learn to move a little bit faster. Because I'm sure that this will not be the last time that Mommy will be outsmarted by the toddler.
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