Another "Special Little Man" Moment

Last week, during spring break, I let Gabe get a pack of bubble gum flavored Trident. He's been kind of obsessed with gum for the last month or two, and he's been able to eat it responsibly so far, so I let him get the pack. Over the course of the week, he ate it all, but, for some reason, couldn't bring himself to throw out the pink box it came in. He had put it on my desk (where everyone puts everything they don't know what to do with, for some reason) this morning before he left for school. Before we left for work, Norah noticed it, saw that it was empty, and asked if she could throw it out. I said, sure, it was trash, go for it.

This afternoon, after school, I was sorting through some laundry and then decided it was probably time for me to take a shower, since I hadn't yet today. I walk into the bathroom and see Gabe running through my office. I can tell by how fast that he's moving that he's nearly emergency stage for peeing--this past few months he's had a few problems with waiting until he pretty much pees himself because he refuses to tear himself away from whatever it is that he's doing (this afternoon, it was lying down in the "cramper" Libby made for them yesterday. Actually, let me sidetrack my main story for a bit with some pictures of these crampers).

Most people, including us, call these "hammocks." Gabe decided they were "crampers." And he kept insisting even after we corrected him a couple times. So that's what they are now. If the kid's going to be insistent on a name change, who are we to judge? "Cramper" is probably a more accurate description of what these things actually do and are to anyone who isn't under the age of ten.

This was Libby's project for yesterday. It took us to Wal-Mart (where we also bought the first rice cooker we've owned in over a decade, because we're tired of soggy rice, and I broke down and bought a Magic Bullet so I could finally chop my "stinking, nasty garlic"--go to about the :58 mark to see Hazel's classic line at this . . . morning after gathering) for the fabric. The kids have loved them.

These legos being here ended in tears this morning, when Norah tried to get in from the other side of her cramper and fell into the lego bin. She's not quite mastered getting into and out of the thing yet.

Norah pretending to sleep. 

Anyway. I was standing in the bathroom, getting ready to get in the shower, and Gabe runs through the office. On the way to the bathroom, he notices the pink Trident box in the trash can and stops. He bends over and examines the box. While he is doing so, he starts to pull down his pants.

Now, this is weird. But it's not unusual. Often, as soon as the thought of going to the bathroom enters Gabe's mind, he drops trow, then and there. We can't figure out WHY he does that, and we can't convince him not to. We point it out to him, and ask him why he's doing it, and he always gets a little embarrassed and pulls his pants up and goes to the bathroom. But that doesn't keep him from doing it again the next time (not every time, mind you, just once in awhile). So no alarm bells went off when he did it this time. I just figured he wasn't paying attention again and was pulling down his pants prematurely. Just as I was getting ready to remind him that he hadn't gone into the bathroom yet and didn't need to pull his pants down yet, he did something entirely unexpected.

He started to pee in the trash can. Now, this trash can isn't really a "can" as such. It is made of wire. It does a pretty half-assed job of containing small pieces of trash. So, obviously, it's not going to keep pee inside it. In other words, he wasn't really peeing IN the trash can so much as peeing THROUGH the trash can and all over what was behind it.  Which, in this case, just so happened to be a 16x20 wedding photo that, for some reason, Libby had rolled up and put in a basket there beside my desk--and behind the trash can. It was soaking wet when he was finished.

Obviously I didn't just stand there not saying anything and watching dumbfounded while he did it. I immediately started with stuff along the lines of "what are you doing?" Possibly with minor cursing. He looked at me, genuinely confused with what I was making a big deal about. I don't even think he was immediately aware of what he was doing. Then he looked down and realized what was going on. After a few seconds, he stopped (which I'm glad for, it's not easy to stop peeing mid-stream, especially when you've not even mastered bathroom using enough to not pee in trash cans). And went to the toilet and finished.

He was pretty embarrassed and apologetic. And, honestly, after the initial shock of witnessing him peeing in the can (and then of cleaning off the wedding picture and rolling it out on the table in the hopes that it would dry), I was too busy laughing for either of us to get too broken up about it. Then, obviously, after dinner, I came in here to type this out because these kinds of stories are too few and far between these days.