Blue water

April 8, 2008 · Posted in Tribune articles · Comment

The latest from my wife’s monthly newspaper column. Hilarious!

I’ve got a little story for the next time you’re having a bad day. Yes, it’s another story about the joys of raising my 4 year old. This kid is incredible! He can be SO charming, loveable, and fun, and then, there are days like the following:

On Monday, we went to see a family counselor. We basically need to learn how THIS 4 year old works, so that we can find the strategies that are going to work with HIM. We DID learn that there are 4 personality types, and that my husband is one, I’m a different type, and the 4 year old is NOT a combination of US, but his own, unique type. He’s a Lion. Always wanting to be in charge. The counselor said that raising a Lion is VERY difficult, because children are NOT in charge, they CAN’T be in charge of most things, and thus, are almost always in turmoil. Yep, that’s MY kid! So anyway, we’re embarking on this new chapter, hoping that it will lead to more harmony, and less strife in our world. Pray for us.

On Monday evening, I was in the living room, watching some TV, and Andy was playing with his cars on the floor. I told him it was time to brush his teeth. He actually got up and went to the bathroom, (I almost fell over) I heard water running, and then when he was finished, he came out of the bathroom with the orange cup that’s kept in there for mouth rinsing. He was sipping out of it along the way. He says, “I brought you a drink of water, Mom.” I really don’t like drinking water. I know it’s good for me, but ick. But because he was so thoughtful, I took a teeny little sip. My thought at the moment was, “Note to self, make sure that cup gets to the dishwasher tonight”, because it smelled just a bit “funky”. Then, Andy took a big drink from it, and says, “Hmmm. That doesn’t TASTE like toilet water at all, does it Mom?” I grabbed the cup, took it to the kitchen, poured the water into a white bowl, and sure enough, there was the faintest blue tint there! MY CHILD FED ME TOILET WATER! The ONLY thing keeping me from just puking every time I think about it is the fact that there was that one little girl who did a study, and swabbed the toilet water at a fast food restaurant, and also took swabs of the drink dispenser, and the ice dispenser, and the toilet water was actually cleaner than the other areas of the restaurant.

So, there’s my little public service announcement for the month. Whenever things are going tough, you can sit back and say, “At least I didn’t drink toilet water today!” Just about everything else is less icky. Just about.