Mr. Clean

Last week, my almost five year old developed an obsession with cleaning toilets. Knowing my luck he's figured out how to turn the computer on, bypassed the Fort Knox-like Parental controls I have recently had to set up because of another family matter, guessed my blog name and picked up on my toilet observations. Even though he's a blue eyed blond who could easily look like a girl if his father stopped dragging him to the barber's every four weeks, I am pretty sure he's male. I am tempted to have a thorough DNA check done though as this hygiene thing is so against the grain for the male species, especially where bathrooms are concerned. Thinking about it though, he does miss the loo occasionally, doesn't even bother to look down most of the time, and multi-tasks like the best of them. On Wednesday I checked on what he was doing "in there", and he was standing peeing and trying to play his sister's recorder at the same time.

You'd think I would embrace and encourage this new hobby. Ordinarily, if I sniffed a volunteer to clean the toilets in our house I'd usually give them a monetary incentive and a weekly schedule. I have a sneaking suspicion however, that he'd go into school and tell all and sundry that his daily chore is to scrub the toilets. Since they're a bit funny about that kind of thing over here, (ie. child labour) my parenting skills would be called into question as would my custodial rights over him. No, the reason why I'm not keen on him messing around with the loo is that he appears only to be interested in cleaning the seats with toothpaste. And his bright blue, kid-friendly toothpaste at that. I mean, when we have people over, it's not exactly a colour that blends in with the porcelain.

And this stuff is really thick and sticky. Rubbing it off with wet toilet paper, is not only pathetically ineffective, but the paper blocks the loo into the bargain. (A post about that later I feel.) Yesterday he was in the downstairs loo far too long and my suspicions were once again aroused. Even more so when I shouted his name and he replied "Nothing!". A dead giveaway. I barged in there and sure enough, he's desperately trying to remove the evidence of his latest hygiene misdemeanour. "Out, out" I shrieked. "How many times..." you get the picture. Out comes the industrial cleaning equipment and about half an hour later I think I've removed the last vestiges. As I said, this stuff is really thick and sticky, and even when it looks like it's all gone, it isn't. Some time later when I went to use the loo myself, I realized I hadn't done the cleaning job well enough.

Like most people, I imagine, when I first sit on the toilet seat, that's not exactly the final position. I sit down, and then gently slide myself backwards an inch or two. (Next time you 'go', I bet you do the same.) Anyway, there was absolutely no slide to be had from this toilet seat and the skin on the back of my thighs was almost ripped off in one jagged movement. Yowza! So now, if he so much as sets foot in the loos without a "proper reason" he is going to lose his Sponge Bob viewing privileges and I don't care how cruel the older two tell me I am. They can clean up his mess if they think that!

Any resemblance to Cruella De Ville is purely coincidental and rather hilarious since I discovered that Nutty Cow seems to have nominated me for a Bloggers' Choice award in the Parenting category! Thanks all the same NC.