A well-timed movement
by Lisa Romeo
“Well, how was it?” I ask, maybe too cheerfully. Paul, my sweet little boy, the one who likes everything just so, is smiling and running. He has finished his first full day of kindergarten.
“It was great, great, all great!” he says, eyes bright, hopping up and down. “Guess what?” he grins. “I pooped!”
I do not grimace and glance to see who may have overheard because I am stunned, gobsmacked. Later, very soon, in fact, I will be quite happy about it. But right now you could knock meover with a number two pencil. Paul, who has always been a circumspect and careful pooper -- never waits too long, always closes the lid, remembers to flush – usually only does so only at home. On occasion, a friend’s bathroom will do, but a public restroom must be meticulouslyclean, scrupulously odor-free, neat, spacious, the toilet not too high, too odd a shape, or size or color.
At a concert, an elegant bathroom with fresh flowers was dismissed as “too smelly.” Another that was dark and cramped made him “lose the urge.” “Everyone will hear me,” he explained at a house birthday party where the loo was too close to the action. Then there are the worst offenders: Automatic flushers that whoosh before their time.
“You pooped at school?”
“Yeah, the bathroom’s right in my classroom,” he exclaims, incredulous, as if Spiderman were assigned the seat next to his. I have seen this bathroom – tiny, windowless, dimly lit, so near the action, with dreary green tile, and a gray floor that could in fact be clean but never looks it.
“Mom, can my new friend Kyle come over? We played dinosaurs,” asks Paul, shiny-faced.
“Yeah, OK,” I mutter and, after searching his backpack for a note from the teacher or school nurse asking me to address Paul’s bathroom issues, and finding none, I add, “Are you sure going to the bathroom at school went OK?”
“Yeah. I made two poops, and wiped three times. But I couldn’t flush. It was too hard to push. So I asked my teacher and she did it for me,” he reports.
“That was good thinking,” I praise.
He scowls, screwing up his face. “Mooomm, I would never not flush, it would get STINKY!”
Is there a name for that delicious and giddy feeling when a child firmly kicks aside his own stumbling block? My careful and ordered little boy, who knows he will be there all day all week, had already adopted this new bathroom as his very own. Not somewhere strange. Not a place he would rather not be. I’d say the first day of kindergarten
went OK.
Lisa Romeo's career has included stints as an equestrian journalist, public relations specialist and her favorite, freelance writer. Her work has appeared in specialty and trade publications and consumer magazines, including The Illustrated Palm Beach, Big Apple Parents Paper, Pizza & Pasta, The Chronicle of the Horse, Pediatric Nursing, NY Rangers Hockey Magazine, New Jersey Bride, and L'anne Hippique. One of her essays will appear in the anthology, "Special Gifts: The Heartache, Happiness and Hope in Raising a Special Needs Child" (May 2007, Wyatt-MacKenzie). She is working toward an MFA in creative nonfiction in the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine and lives in Cedar Grove, NJ, with her husband and two sons. You can read her blog at www.AskAnyMom.blogspot.com.
|
