At 6:30am this morning I was grumbling because an unnamed child of mine didn’t replace the toilet paper and I discovered this too late. Toilet paper and milk. My kids consume lots of both. We are out of milk. We are not out of toilet paper. Everyone remembers to put the milk away. Not everyone remembers to replace the toilet paper.
A little later, as I was getting ready for work (and had resolved the toilet paper situation)
I was thinking about how once when my two older boys were young and we were down to one roll of toilet paper in the house. A roll of toilet paper went much further back then, so that wasn’t an urgent thing. What was more urgent was that they both needed a bath and the tub plug had mysteriously gone missing from the bathroom. I searched around the house (because someone had likely been playing with it) but couldn’t find it. So I went back to bathroom, to find that the entire roll of toilet paper – the only one we had – had been tossed into the toilet, and was just floating around. The tub plug was also still missing. I suspected that it too had gone into the toilet and likely had made it’s way into our septic system. (Back then all sorts of things did. Now it’s only occasionally. I’m working on that one. Plumbers are expensive).
Because they needed a bath and I needed toilet paper I packed them up and we drove to the hardware store to first get a tub plug, after which we would go to Target for toilet paper. While I was buying a tub plug, I realized that one of the boys had gone missing. I found him hiding in the corner. He was close to being potty trained but had yet to master pooping in the toilet. Well, guess what he had done in his pants while he was hiding.
I grabbed him and my other son and promptly left the store. I left the tub plug behind even though I had already paid for it. I went back home to clean him up and then remembered we were still out of toilet paper. The other roll was also still floating in the toilet, and was by then pretty saturated.
Fun times, I tell you.
After the incident at the hardware store I made a deal with the kid who had pooped his pants: If he stopped pooping his pants he could have a Popsicle. Not a whole box, just one popsicle. My kids were much easier to bribe back then. One day not long after that he went into the bathroom, pooped in the toilet, asked for help wiping (with toilet paper). After he was done, he promptly went downstairs and helped himself to a Popsicle. He never pooped his pants after that day.
Potty training isn’t always easy but try training a kid with developmental delays such as the ones mine had and you will discover that it takes much, much longer. My daughter literally potty trained herself. My boys took what felt like forever. Needless to say I have changed a lot of diapers in the course of my time as a mother. But not anymore. Everyone eventually was trained by the time they went to kindergarten and now our only issue is making sure every bathroom is well stocked with toilet paper.
Every time I pass the baby aisle at the store I happily walk past because I have long since needed to buy diapers, and while there are still things to work on, am happy I am at least beyond that phase. I will gladly buy lots of toilet paper if it means I never have to change a diaper again.
But seriously. Replace the toilet paper in the bathroom if you use it all up. That’s all I ask.