Day 168 - 08/07/2007

"Uh, N, is there a reason you peed in the trashcan instead of the toilet?"

"I wanted to see what it was like."

Well, I guess there's no argument with that logic, especially when coming from a five year old.

I went to the basement bathroom to brush my teeth before heading to work this morning and noticed the toilet seat in the up position. We keep our seat (and lid) down for two reasons:

1) I really don't want to look into the toilet when I walk into the bathroom, especially if the previous flush didn't work all the way; and

2) Cats get their paws wet when they drink out of toilets that they then track it around the house. It's bad enough that they walk on the table and counters with the paws that were just recently in their litter boxes, but having them also wet from the toilet? No thanks.

So, with the above two reasons in mind, we prefer to keep them shut. I've been trying to get N in the habit of putting the seat back down and, after not making much progress, decided to go the route I took with M regarding her leaving the lights on: For every time I find the seat up, I'm going to charge N 25¢ (I charge M the same when she leaves her lights on).

So, much to my chagrin, when I went down to brush my teeth, I was disappointed to see the seat up. But what really got me was seeing what was in the trashcan: an inch of pee (the trashcan is plastic and [fortunately] holds liquids). I wasn't sure what it was at first, but after pouring it into the toilet, it became obvious.

I came home to drop my guitar off after my lesson and saw N on the driveway. I told him we had to go inside and talk and marched him down to the basement. I asked him if he knew why he was down there and he broke down at the thought of losing a quarter.

"That's not it. Is there any other reason why I'd bring you down here?"

Silence.

"Is there something you did in the bathroom you weren't supposed to?"

And that's when the waterworks started. Knowing he'd been nailed, he broke down and cried through his confession. At this point D came down. I hadn't told her what was going on so she was somewhat surprised at what was going on, but she was able to stifle her laughter when necessary.

Overall, it was quite humorous. Hopefully the point was made though, and we'll not find N using anything but the toilet for his bodily needs.