Anonymous
01-10-2005, 07:06 PM
I arrived back home with Ethan, my 10 month old son and Lauren, his 3 year old cousin, after leaving to retrieve The Gate; a sixty dollar, 12 foot long, two and a half foot high sturdy, plastic, folding cage designed to entrap children or partition sections of a home, thereby acting as a barricade. I was as intent on placing The Gate at the bottom of the stairs as Ethan was on climbing them. He loves to climb them and works his way to the base of the staircase at every opportunity or just when he is not being held for more than .02 seconds. Its not the climbing that concerns me, as Ethan is a quite capable climber; it is the falling, as he is not a good faller. Only moments after The Gate was in place did Ethan begin to explore it for weaknesses. Within a minute or so the 3 year old little lady, Lauren, said, “Baby-Stairs.” Sure enough, baby was halfway to the ceiling and quite proud of his effort. After escorting him down, I began to think of ways to secure The Gate to the staircase. A strap that is used to carry The Gate worked nicely for one side. As I began to consider the options available in the home to secure the other side (telephone cord, long plastic plants, a belt) little Lauren said, “Joseph-Tee Tee.” I know from experience that when Lauren says, “Joseph-Tee Tee”, she means “now! Stop whatever you are doing and get me to the bathroom immediately or you will be changing my clothes and breaking the wet vac out on the floor.” Never mind that I wasn’t finished strapping The Gate to the staircase or that with all the multitasking that morning, my own call from nature had been neglected. Personal needs aside, I am now sharply focused on securing, as quickly as possible, the other end of The Gate to the staircase and transporting Lauren to the bathroom. Grabbing the nearest thing I could get my hands own - my sweatshirt; I needled an arm into a slit in The Gate and wrapped the other arm around the staircase so as to fashion a knot. “Joseph-Tee Tee.” I pulled the arms together until the material ceased stretching and securely fastened The Gate to the staircase. “Joooseph-Tee Tee.” Scooping Lauren up in mid stride, we rushed to the bathroom and she was placed on the apparatus. I suppose that the biological connection from bladder to brain having only recently evolved requires quite a buildup of pressure before emitting a signal ‘cause this little child has some torque. When the highly pressurized internal valve system finally gives way, the resulting pressure can literally chip away at the porcelain. On the other hand, it is possible that she kinda likes the splattering effect. Imagine if you will, a fully pressurized fire hose aimed squarely at a brick wall at a distance of about 4 feet. So the child’s orientation to the apparatus that she is seated upon becomes important and must be just so. Too upright and we get a major backsplash. Leaned too far back and we get a mess. And positioned just so, only the porcelain sustains heavy damages. Needless to say, before I could correct the error in orientation, the baby is crying because The Gate is no longer allowing him entrance to the stairs. So I go to calm him and before we get back to the bathroom to assess the damages, little Lauren is standing outside the bathroom completely naked and saying, “All done.” “Where are your clothes,” I asked. “Tee Tee,” she said. Once again, drawing heavily on experience, I know that the clothes are wet. I reached for the door to gather the soiled garments but the door had been locked from the inside. This is one of those interior door locks where there is a small hole in the center of the doorknob that requires a flat key to be inserted and twisted. As a kid, I used to get these open with a bobby pin, ice pick, itsy bitsy flathead screwdriver or coat hanger. If none of these could be found, I would get really creative but always managed to gain entrance. None of these items was handy and I still had a naked three year old to deal with. So baby in one arm, we negotiated past the barricade and up to Lauren’s room for a change of clothes. After offering numerous choices, including the famed Dora Collection, and her continually denying them all, nature’s call grew strong. I told the little Britney Spears to find something that would make her happy and put it on, then headed to the bathroom with Ethan in tow. I don’t normally take my son to the bathroom with me and prefer he not have to endure such, but this was to ensure his safety as we were upstairs and he is a very curious little boy who seems to fear nothing, including heights, sharp objects, alligators, etc.. Within a minute or so the door flung open and Lauren said, “My bathroom.” She is obviously not totally comfortable with the concept of sharing. I told her to shut the door. She said, “Bathroom-Stink.” I said, “Shut the door.” She said, “Bathroom-Stink.” Then she walked in and began to initiate a sneak attack on the baby, who, unhappy at the confined quarters was firmly in my arms. “Boo,” she said as she lunged forward, giggling all the while. I convinced her to play hide and seek from behind the door and when it was shut, leaned over just enough to lock it. I’ll spare you the details of trying to finish bathroom business while sharing the small enclosure with an aggressive ten-month-old boy whose very DNA has encoded him to impulsively stick his hand in the commode and splash the water at every opportunity. By the way, this encoding is so powerful that he totally ignores the fact that another human, ten times his own bodyweight is seated upon the very apparatus to which he is compulsively driven to stick his hand into. I will tell you that by the time I got to Lauren, she was two rooms over and had managed to empty every single article of clothing from a rather large suitcase. This all occurred between 10:00 and 10:20 AM this morning. It is 10:45 PM now. The bathroom is still locked, my sweatshirt has been stretched to now fit Shaquille O’Neal, the suitcase is still empty, clothes strewn everywhere and the adventures continue.
Joseph Baiamonte
Joseph Baiamonte