Don't Toot in My Water

Being a parent can be exasperating. It can also be hilarious. Unfortunately, the humor is too often found after the fact. I have had many conversations with friends about situations we never dreamed we’d encounter or conversations we never imagined we'd have until we had children. Most of the time, as we review each situation in hindsight, there are enthusiastic nods of agreement and unbridled laughter. Every once in awhile, though, I get the "okay...we've never done THAT" along with the laughs, and I am, once again, reminded that my Anna doesn't really fit any mold out there.

It has been funny to talk with people who only know my Kate. Kate is saucy in her own right. She thinks she's big. And invincible. She throws herself on bigger kids, laughing while trying to tackle them to the ground. She doesn't bat an eye at being sprayed with a garden hose or plunging her own face under the running bathtub faucet. She got her head shut in a door the other day while trying to escape to the great outdoors behind someone who didn't see her coming. The look she shot her offender was icy, irritated disbelief, but she didn't even whimper. The people who only know Kate comment about her spark and lovingly joke that she must be a hard kiddo to handle. It's the people who know both of my girls, however, who realize how easy Kate is by comparison.  And I am blessed by Kate’s brand of easy. I think God knew just what I needed, and he gave me two little girls who teach me more about the depths of love in a day than I could have ever grasped prior to their arrival.

At any rate, Anna finally seems to be coming out of a month-long phase in which she was our house’s Food Cleanliness Nazi. It started one day when, admittedly, I had been gassy (however polite and apologetic about it), and Anna was disgusted. I tried to serve her peaches at dinner, and she scrunched up her nose and asked if I had washed them. When I told her that I hadn’t and that her peaches were clean, she said, “I wanted you to wash them because they might have your bottom in them.” This trend continued. She watched as I washed my hands before serving her food for fear her food may “get toots in it,” and regardless of how much I redirected, scolded, or reassured her, her mind was set and the topic wouldn’t go away. I found myself embarrassed and highly irritated by the whole situation.

One day, Anna tried to return a sippy cup full of some sort of drink, trying to convince me it had toots or bottom or something in it. I firmly told her to stop talking that way and told her that toots could not get in her drink. She disagreed with me and started explaining, “Well, if you took the lid off and held it by your privates and…”

Enough. I started adopting a zero tolerance policy. She was expected to eat what was served and be polite about it, and should she begin to talk of flatulence tainting her food, she could go without and head to her room. It seemed we were making at least slight progress until one night when we had family in town. I had tucked Anna into bed for the night and had settled in for some quality conversation with my cousin when she emerged from her room. Brian went back to see what her problem was and returned to the dining room, sippy cup in hand. “Anna says you tooted in her water.”

“I did not!”—I’m not sure where my indignation came from. My cousin laughed.

Fortunately, it has been over a week now since I have heard anything of toots or bottoms being an issue in our kitchen. As I alluded to earlier, situations are funnier in hindsight. Now that I am relatively certain that Anna won’t be going into middle school still claiming my bottom is ruining her food, I can laugh more freely.

I write much about Anna so that I don’t forget these moments (for better or for worse). The emotional highs and lows of raising her are so vivid right now that it’s hard for me to imagine that one day, this may all be a blur.

A week or so ago, Anna was snuggled on my shoulder at the end of what had been an exceptionally rough day for both of us. She had been ill-tempered and defiant, and I was emotionally shot from having tried to manage her all day without losing it myself. At one point in our seemingly endless evening, I cried. Curled up against me, she asked me why I had cried, and I told her I was tired and that my feelings had been hurt. She thought for a moment and then asked me what names tears had. 

"Names?"

"Yeah. What do you call your tears?"

"Sometimes tears are sadness, sometimes they're hurt, sometimes they're disappointment. Is that what you mean?"

"Yeah."

"Sometimes they can be heartache..."

"Yeah, and sometimes they can be headaches or armpitaches or handaches, too."

She looked thoughtful. I sighed, smiled, and kissed her head.