I feel as though I should start a category called “Ways My Toddler Has Mortified Me In Public Restrooms.”
So you know this post is going to go well.
We were out running errands the other day and stopped to go to the bathroom. I do not particularly enjoy public restrooms in general on account of how I tend to be slightly neurotic. This is one thing about motherhood that I had not anticipated, the fact that after potty training I would be spending an inordinate amount of time in public restrooms.
I also did not anticipate hearing myself say things like “No, we do NOT lick the bathroom walls” and “Please stop rubbing your face on the bathroom floor.”
Or the worst: “NO THERE IS NOT A PRESENT IN THAT LITTLE SILVER BOX FOR YOU STOP TOUCHING IT RIGHT NOW AND DOUSE YOURSELF WITH THIS BOTTLE OF HAND SANITIZER IMMEDIATELY OH MY GOSH.”
The thing about Scarlette is that she likes to narrate everything that is happening around her. Which is super convenient and not at all embarrassing when you need to go to the bathroom.
She also desperately loves talking to other people and so we have had many conversations about giving people privacy in the bathroom and how we do not crawl under the stalls to talk to them. Or stick our hands underneath the stalls to wave at them and ask if they are Santa Clause.
(I don’t even know.)
So after a few words of warning this time around Scarlette spied my cell phone in my purse and took it out. Honestly I was kind of like “This is brilliant. I will just let her draw on the drawing app and I won’t have to worry about her trying to peek under the stall. Why have I never thought of this before?”
And that’s when she crouched down, laid my cell phone on the floor and gave it a big push so that it spun across the public bathroom floor and skidded to a stop at the feet of a woman a few stalls down.
Before I even fully registered what was happening, she clapped her hands gleefully and shouted “MOMMY! I DID SUCH A GOOD JOB SHARING YOUR PHONE IN DIS BATHROOM!”
A few minutes later a woman emerged from the stall gingerly holding my phone and held it out to me with a laugh as I stood washing my hands.
“You are very good at sharing” Scarlette told her.
Obviously my child still hasn’t totally grasped the concept of sharing.
And also, I seriously have got to stop drinking coffee before I take my three year old in public. BUT THAT IS WHY I NEED THE COFFEE.
The stuff this kid says slays me.
