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Milestones

October 17th, 2008 · 7 Comments · Family Life, You want whine with that

My son and I had a milestone of sorts this weekend.

I let him go into a public bathroom.  By himself.

I knew this day would come.  When he would refuse to go into the women’s room with me because there were girls there.  I’d managed to avoid it because those “family” bathrooms have become so popular.

So Sunday while we were at the Target he had to pee.  The family bathroom was occupied.  And he looked at me and said, “I don’t want to go in the girl bathroom.”  And it wasn’t in a defiant tone of voice.   It was in a sad sort of, “I really don’t want to do this so please don’t make me.”

So I screwed up my courage and gave him his instructions.  “Don’t.touch.anything!  Don’t.talk.to.anyone.  If anyone gets too close to you scream and runaway.”  And as he was walking through the door he said, “and wash my hands.”

And as I stood as close to that door as I possibly could without actually walking  in, for what seemed like an incredibly long time, a man came out.   Another man went in.  And then he came out again.  And as he walked past me, standing ready to storm the bathroom if my baby needed me, he said, “he’s almost finished.   He’s washing his hands.  And singing.”  And he had a somewhat puzzled look on his face.

I’ve told the BoyChild to use soap and while washing his hands to sing the entire A-B-C song.  It was the best I could think of to get him to do more than run his hands through the running water.

He proudly walked out of the bathroom and I realized we’d reached a milestone of some sort and it made me want to cry.

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7 responses so far ↓

  • 1 misfithausfrau // Oct 17, 2008 at 2:14 pm

    That is HUGE! I don’t know when I will allow my kids to go in alone. Congrats!

  • 2 daysgoby // Oct 17, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    Oh that’s so SWEET! And I’m sniffling, too….

  • 3 M&Co. // Oct 17, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    Jess, does your BoyChild go into the men’s room by himself?

    My BoyChild has balked at going into the women’s room since summer. I think it started when I would take him into the women’s rest room to change because when he was with Dad he got to go into the men’s locker room.

  • 4 M&Co. // Oct 17, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    MisFit,

    With the GirlChild it wasn’t so much her going alone but her wanting to TOUCH everything in there. I still remember the day that she reached out with her tiny foot and flushed the toilet. It melted my heart a little.

  • 5 Cynthia // Oct 17, 2008 at 6:21 pm

    Oh man…..that made me almost cry….our BABIES!!!!

  • 6 Nadine Hightower // Oct 18, 2008 at 6:51 am

    see. That wasn’t so bad.
    And I love that he sings!
    Good Job, Mom!
    High Five!

  • 7 Beth // Oct 19, 2008 at 2:26 am

    Oh, bless his heart! I love that your big boy was singing just as you’d told him to. :-) What a good kid!

    My son doesn’t usually make a big deal out of which bathroom he goes in, but I’ve let him go in the men’s room alone occasionally and I’ve waited like you, ready to go in if he takes a second too long. That seems to work fine. If I have to go to the bathroom, though, I make him come with me because otherwise he’d be waiting out there alone. *sigh* Family bathrooms are *such* a good thing.

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