Saturday 24 September 2011

You'll never **** alone...

There are plenty of things I could complain that no-one warns you about having children. Piles - no-one warns you about the piles. The lack of sleep for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE is not made clear either.The trauma of cutting your tiny weeny babies nails - no-one told me about this either (but I'm going to cut her finger tips off!). But these issues do get discussed afterwards, in hushed circles, by those in the know. Its like a secret club that you can only be in if you have had a child - "yes I got piles too. jolly good fun that was, did you try an enema of coffee? No not necessarily helpful, but it takes your mind off it darling".  But there is one issue that doesn't even get discuss in these circles - the fact that you'll never have a bowel movement undisturbed again, ever.

As a species, we, as humans, at some point made a strange evolutionary sideways shift to being beings that are embarrassed about our bodily functions. Other animals just go - you never see a cow hiding behind a bush for an adventure wee or a lion seeking away from the pride to make a number two. But we as humans, for some reason or other, have decreed that these bodily functions are foul and embarrassing.  We have built little private rooms to disappear into to relieve ourselves where no-one else is around. And we only elude to their use as well - I'm going to the little girls room to powder my nose; I'm going to tinkle etc.  The whole thing is more than a little hush hush. Therefore - pre-children - you are used to this time being sacred and private. You probably mention it only to your partner, but even then, it is one of the few times you are alone, really alone. Private.

But not after you have had kids. Then you are never alone. My children burst in on me when I'm in the loo (see what I did there, typing in the loo is somehow less embarrassing than typing ON the loo) at least once a day. We do have more than one bathroom, so there is no excuse.  Yet for some reason that is the perfect time to need to wash their face, brush their teeth, or far too often, just tell me something.  It started before K could even move. Being a first child, if she was awake, she clearly could not be left alone, so I'd bring her into the bog with me in her piccolo chair. These days I have a box of toys in their for G as she will howl if I dare leave her on the wrong side of a shut door. Being able to open the toilet door is another of the modern milestones of child development. Your privacy is no loner sacred. My girls just don't get it - they will just walk in and keep talking to me.  And yes, I could lock them out - but what if it was important?

This post was inspired today by K - she came into the bathroom to tell me that G had stacked her cups. "Okay, thank you for that bulletin, keep me abreast of any further developments and don't let the door hit your a**e on the way out" I say. "Huh?" she says. "Off you go" I say "and shut the door". "What shut it?" She says; "Like properly shut it? Closed and everything? Shut-shut?" Says it all doesn't it.

1 comment:

  1. You know reading your blog makes me NEVER want to have kids :P

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