Adventures in Potty-sitting

Act One: 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning, Doublestein household

Characters present: Jason, Annie, Jemma

The scene: After a long, snowy day inside on Friday, Stephanie decides to go to the gym with neighbor Sarah for a morning run and rowing tutorial. Inside the house, Jason eagerly awaits the delivery of their new, bought-with-five-years-of-credit-card-points leather chair, scheduled to arrive between 8:00 and 10:00. While he waits, he decides abruptly that he absolutely MUST shovel the bottom of the driveway (the part where the street plow deposited one ton of snow) to aid the deliverymen. (Note that his general shoveling philosophy is, "Why shovel? It's just going to snow more;" as a result, Stephanie does 90% of the winter shoveling.) Seized by this sudden burst of devotion to shoveling, he decides to just leave the children inside the house, coming in to check on them every five minutes. They are wearing dance outfits and re-enacting the Nutcracker Sugar Plum Fairy dance. They are happy. What could happen?

The delivery truck pulls up just as Jason is finishing his shoveling chore. He leads the men inside the house. He hears Annie talking to Jemma from an unseen location.

Annie: "Jemma, come here! I have to put your diaper back on!"

Jemma: "New dipe! New dipe!" Runs into living room, completely naked, followed closely by Annie, holding a diaper.

Annie, seeing Jason: "Dad, I'm just changing her diaper. She just went poop on the potty."

Jason: "What????!!!??"

Deliveryman: "Ah, where do you want the chair?"

Annie: "Yeah, dad. She kept saying, 'poo-poo, potty' so I asked her if she needed to go poop and she said yes and I asked if she wanted to sit on the potty and she said yes so I took her pants and diaper off and put the potty seat on the toilet and lifted her up there and now there's a little poop in there. So I need to put a new diaper on her."

Deliveryman, to Jemma: "Aren't you cold?"


*************************

Act Two: Saturday evening 5:30 p.m., Blue Water Grill restaurant

Characters present: Jason, Stephanie, Annie, Jemma

Scene One: After spending the afternoon at Meijer Gardens looking at the reindeer, the train, and the Christmas trees, the family goes out for dinner. Jemma orders chocolate milk, Annie orders a Shirley Temple, and Jason and Stephanie order house cabernet. Annie's drink arrives accompanied by four flavors of maraschino cherries, which she and Jemma promptly (stickily) eat. Annie then drinks down half her beverage in the 10 minutes it takes for the food to arrive. The family begins to eat.

Annie, squirming: "Mom, I'm not hungry. I want to go home."

Stephanie: "What?? And miss all the special Christmas lights we're going to go see?"

Annie: "I have a tummy-ache. I feel like I'm going to throw up."

Stephanie shoots knowing glance at Jason. "Do you have to go potty?"

Annie: "No."

Stephanie: "Let's just go try."

Annie: "Nooooooooooooooooooooo! I'm afraid it's going to be a loud flush! I'm afraid it's going to flush by itself! No Mommy No I'll just wait and go at home!!!!"

Stephanie: "Fine." Takes large swallow of wine.

Five minutes later:

Annie: "Mom, I have to go potty really bad."

Stephanie: "Yeah, I know. Let's just go SEE what kind of toilets they are, and if they're noisy, you can cover your ears and I can make them so they don't flush by themselves."

The two walk to the bathroom, Annie whimpering the whole way.

Scene Two, in the bathroom:

Annie, digging her heels in as Stephanie attempts to drag her into the stall: "Mommy, no, I don't have to go anymore! It's an automatic flush! Noooooooooooooooooo!!!"

Stephanie takes a napkin (which she has brilliantly brought along for just such emergency use) and covers the flush sensor of the toilet. "See, I put the napkin over it and NOW," (waves hand in front of toilet repeatedly) "Now it won't flush until I take the napkin away. See? So come sit down and go."

Annie, trying to climb the corner of the stall to get as far away as possible from the toilet while still covering her ears: "Mommy, noooooooooooo."

Stephanie reaches with her free arm to collar Annie and try to coax her slowly to the toilet. "Annie, I promise I'm not going to let it flush while you're on it."

Annie looks up warily. "Promise?"

Stephanie: "I promise."

They repeat this coversation for approximately 13 minutes until Annie reluctantly climbs on and pees, still covering her ears, then sprints back to her corner before allowing Stephanie to let the toilet flush. They wash hands, exit the stall, and walk back to their table, where the food has been boxed up. Stephanie sits down, raises her glass of wine to Jason, and says, "Cheers!" before drinking down the remainder of the drink in one gulp.

The end.