Despite our efforts to encourage and enforce the “pee before we leave” rule, it doesn’t seem to matter that our two oldest are urinary camels for several days straight but the minute we enter a restaurant, their inability to sit for five minutes without a visit to the restroom is nothing short of ridiculous.
Being the same sex parent of three girls, I am the appointed bathroom attendant whenever we are out in public.
I can usually expect at least one trip in before we order, one the minute our food arrives and at least one before paying the bill. Sometimes I have a French fry dangling from my mouth, a baby on my hip as I lean in to wipe someone’s bum, a reminder of the charmed life I lead.
This weekend, we visited a restaurant bathroom that had been newly decorated, everything was automated and the girls were enthralled by the idea that modern technology was responsible for the way things flushed, squirted and dispensed based on motion. Thanks! This turned our usual two minute visit into at least fourteen minutes per session and made them eager to get back to try out the latest gadget before I could chew a single carrot or chug a beer.
Their usual disinterest in dining out , paralleled with their fascination of a hot hand-dryer blowing their hair out of their eyes once again landed me in the smelly seat.
Upon angled entry, the door smashed into anyone within a three foot area usually leaving me to apologize for the hurried behaviour of two kids whose curiously small bladders were no match for the lady who despite pressing down on a non-existent handle, could not get the tap to dispense any water.
The automated flush was angry that day my friends. Each time a toilet flushed, car-seat baby went into startled star-fish pose followed by a series of frightened tears.
Ellie, whose small bum is simply not big enough to set off the sensor on the toilet would either get sprayed bidet-style while on the throne or, she would break-dance, do jumping jacks and under the knee hand claps over the bowl in an effort to instigate a response. Flush, frozen-star-fish, tears, we were onto the sink.
Before reaching the sink of course we make contact with the door into the bathroom as someone new is entering and once again I am apologizing over an earful from the baby and a disappointed four year old who couldn’t play her cute-as-a-button card to get that toilet to give her a flush.
Hanna found a change table in the bathroom with the silver bar for the physically challenged but asked that I not use it as someone with a wheelchair might need it.
Unfortunately, it was my only option but I wish I had listened to her. When I flipped down the plastic flap, it was in a sorry, soiled state, just as I had expected. I spent the first of my only few remaining baby wipes, smearing around some other baby’s feces, how many babies the numerous smears belonged to was anyone’s guess. After drying the filth with toilet paper, was I seriously considering laying my clean little star-fish on this germy, crooked, back-drop?
I couldn’t do it. Instead, I tried to balance her on her feet while her upper body leaned on my right shoulder. Sweat dripping down my face, Ellie dancing for a flush, Hanna with fistfuls of liquid soap dripping through her palms onto the newly renovated floor, is hit by a new patron who thankfully did not require the wheelchair accessible stall. New diaper secure, the toilet flushes, starfish begins to cry.
Maybe next time we’ll order in.
