Picture me, my friends, singing out my heart's desire like Snow White trilling "Someday My Prince Will Come": someday nobody will pee on my bathroom floor.
What's that you say? You don't like the scansion? I'm telling you my heart's desire and you're quibbling about its meter?
I do not understand how all this peeing on the floor happens, exactly, not having peed on the floor myself since I was a wee small child who was appropriately embarrassed about it. Perhaps it's a mark of Zorro kind of thing. Swish to the left! Swish to the right! And back to the left, spraying tub, floor, and, for the hat trick, the wall! Maybe it is bred in the bone for males to mark their territory, in which case I might prefer that they find a fire hydrant in lieu of marking the vanity as theirs and theirs alone. There are five males marking territory here, after all. That's a lot of marking and not so much territory. (My bathtub! No, mine! Hey, I was here first! My scrubbing arm is tired just thinking about it.)
Do they just get distracted in the middle of things? Stop in to pee and -- oh, look, something shiny over there? There must be a lot of shiny in my house then -- a veritable silver mine invisible to the untutored female eye.
This post was inspired by yet another late-night trip to the bathroom in which I wound up with soggy pajama cuffs. I have one son who wanders a bit at night -- gets up to relieve himself (which is, of course, better than staying put to relieve himself) but is pretty disoriented doing so. It was worse last summer, when he would get just to the door of the bathroom and let fly on the floor, or occasionally even stray into a bedroom. I would wake up from a dead sleep when I heard the faint jingle of bunkbed hardware, vaulting out of bed to steer him toiletwards. "Waitwaitwaitwait," I would tell him, and it seems to have worked, finally. Puddles around the toilet are better than damp spots on the carpet any day of the week.
I'm still tired of puddles around the toilet.
No one ever owns up to creating the puddles around the toilet. Sometimes I can nab an offender -- if he walks out and I walk in and spot the evidence, then he's going to be wiping down the bathroom. Mostly, though, they all aver that they had nothing to do with the mysterious puddle. They always aim front and center, every time, just like their mama taught them.
I used to envision an intruder in disguise, slipping in the back door expressly to pee on the floor and then slipping back out again. Maybe I should call the police about that. Help, I would say, it's the Masked Mystery Micturator!
These days I am taking the long view. Someday they will all leave home and pee on their own floors. Given their current enthusiasm for making puddles and reluctance to clean them up, I might need to take a paddle when I visit their homes.
Somebody needs to tell Snow White that when her prince finally comes, she may find herself singing a new song.
And I thought it was bad with 2 sons under age 6! When I had one son using the toilet, I rarely found puddles, but I think having a younger brother peeing left and right has inspired him to pee here and there too. Argh.
Posted by: Amy F | June 14, 2009 at 01:34 PM
This cracked me up. I have one almost-3-year-old boy and 1 husband. The pee is not terrible but there is definitely an issue with the boy (the husband, not so much). He does get distracted, but he's also practicing. I can tell he enjoys seeing how he can aim it. "What if I don't hold it?" or "What if I kind of lay it on the side of the bowl?" Arrrgh.
Posted by: mary | June 14, 2009 at 09:12 PM
This was perfectly hilARious! For some reason, I lost it at about 'let fly on the floor' and had to calm myself long enough to concentrate on the rest of the essay. Wonderful!
Posted by: Sarah @ This Heavenly Life | June 15, 2009 at 08:29 PM
Too funny. I have 3 boys and a girl on the way...we live with the pee on the floor, and all over the toilet seat. I'm about to give up on the little rugs that hug the bottom of the toilet.
Posted by: Erin | June 16, 2009 at 05:12 PM
Your post is so timely! I just remarked to my husband yesterday that I understand now why moms of boys complain so much about the bathroom! It always reeks of pee. ugh. (We only have one boy and he's just been potty--maybe that should say bathroom since it doesn't always make the potty--trained)
My husband is a saint though because I never once had an inkling...apparently he's a great aimer. He credits the beatings from his Mama. God love her!
Posted by: Entropy | June 17, 2009 at 07:04 PM
so funny- my husband's mom has 4 boys- all men now, but i wonder how their poor bathroom managed...i will say she instilled the rule "toilet seat down" very, very well. thanks for the laugh on a morning when it was really needed!!
Posted by: pnuts mama | June 19, 2009 at 09:47 AM
Oh Dear! Sigh, it did make for a tragicomic post, though... :-(
Posted by: Lilian | June 21, 2009 at 08:12 PM
oh yes... I have 2 boys and a husband and they all miss at times.I have a 7 yo who pees in other rooms though on purpose... anybody ever have that?
Posted by: Nancy | July 26, 2009 at 10:19 AM