This is definitely a parent story. If you don’t have kids, you may just want to skip this. :-P Being a parent is really great. When Mazie says “I love you Daddy!” I pretty much melt on the spot. But being a parent brings you really close to things like boogers, poop and puke. Traditionally Mom’s bear this brunt more than Dad’s, and that is definitely true in our family.

Mazie is now totally potty trained. She hasn’t touched a diaper for a few weeks, even at night. She’s doing a great job. Fantastic actually. She sleeps through the night and everything. However, she wont go near a normal toilet. She insists, and will really only use, her kids potty. We have it with us as a result. It sits in the van and has made appearances all over on the Summer of Love road trip. Side of the raod potty stop, check. Sidewalk potty stop in downtown, check. Quick potty in the car while getting gas, check check.

Today Mazie announced at lunch that she wanted to “go and take a poop”. We were downtown Portland at a fabulous restaurant and had finished. Tammy took Mazie to the bathroom and she predictably decided she didn’t have to go when she saw the toilet in the bathroom. Off they went to the van to use her potty. Right there in downtown, in the van, we had a #2 stop but lacked anywhere to “take care” of the potty. So, we started driving with a window cracked open.

We stopped after about 15 miles to get gas and Tammy took care of the potty. Tammy, being a fully immersed mom grabs the ‘container’ in the potty. She doesn’t put it in a bag or anything. No real attempt to conceal anything. She just grabs it and walks right into the gas station and heads to the bathroom. Total bad ass. I chuckled to myself while pumping the gas thinking of the amount of angst that would have went into that procedure before being a parent. What are you going to do, right?