Potty Chairs and a Walk in the Park

Today I went to Lewisville Park with the girls, once I decided that we needed to escape the confines of the abode.

Not to get side-tracked, but speaking of abode, it rhymes with --- commode! Yesterday I got Ellie her own little potty seat (which ROCKS), since she has arrived at the age where she is obsessed with all things potty. She had found Mags’ old potty seat in the garage and had taken to pulling it out in the driveway and crying until someone pulled down her pants and allowed her to sit upon it au naturel. Problem with that was that we have been unable to find the little “bowl” – so basically, had she released the golden stream, she would have been peeing on the stones in the driveway – which, although it seems kind of old-world European, is really not the best overall solution – for our family anyway, not to judge anyone else who may really be into peeing outside. So, Ellie has a potty seat. Guess who is (was) DYING to use it? It’s not me or Jay. So, this morning while I was still allowing my first burst of caffeine to launch me into the day, I had one of my “Where is Maggie” moments. I found her in the bathroom draped in toilet paper, “wiping her butt.” Alas, no telltale crap was in the toilet, so I asked where said crap happened to be. She told me that she had left it in Ellie’s potty. And she was telling the truth. Anyway, I made her swear that she would not use the potty seat again – although I will give her a “pass” if Ellie is in the room at the time and Mags is willing to do a demo.

At the park, we played on the “merry-go-round” and the swings, and Mags wanted to go down the giant slide. This is not a slide built upon soft, shredded rubber from discarded tires, constructed of kid-friendly materials or surrounded by protective netting. This swing was undoubtedly put in place when the WPA carved out the rest of the park – when the West was wild, Sasquatch fished in the river and kids had hard heads. There are not “steps” – there are thin, rounded metal “rungs.” It sits upon hard-packed dirt that you could bounce basketballs upon. It is TALL. And my daughter wanted UP. And, up she went - with me behind her trying not to say the words “scared” or “careful” too much or too loudly, and wondering if she happened to misstep what the probability was that we would both plunge to the crusty earth below and break our backs. She said she wanted to go down “lots of times,” but I think I got her to stop at 4 because she had to pee. She also made me follow her down each time (since I had climbed up behind her every time anyway) and it was totally fun. Then, she wanted Ellie to have a turn – “Carry her up, Mama!” Well, no. But, Ellie did enjoy sliding down the 5 feet or however high I could lift her up from the ground at the side of the slide. And, when Ellie went down, Mags waited at the bottom to give her a sister kiss.

Following the playground, we went “bush-whacking” down below a foot bridge to play in a brook and continued on to a clearing at the river’s edge. It was there that Mags lost her little twig/”fishing pole” and I had to keep my terror down as I told her about what happens when things float down the river and how we have to just say good-bye and wish them well because we CANNOT go in after them, under ANY circumstances. When, in my mild panic, we hiked away from the rushing water, I took a different route than on the way out, leaving us farther down the rocky brook-bed than I would have liked. Mags was having a hard time, but was clearly into the adventure of it all. I was carrying Ellie, which made it hard to help Mags much. At one point, she stepped wrong in her big pink rainboots and fell on her knee. She pouted a bit, but once I congratulated her for being an “Explorer” like our spunky Latina cartoon friend, she pushed on. Near the end, I heard her say, “Come, Little Maggie. Walk on the rocks with me. You can do it – I know you can!” (Which sounds a whole lot like the mama duck in Little Quack, and if you are not familiar with that book, you should go to the bookstore soon.)