While I’m not a parent, I do understand that filling that role means having to deal with a lot of awkward moments. Sometimes, it involves a kid saying something rude very loudly in public without realizing it, and sometimes it involves one of those dreaded “accidents.”
However, for one dad, the awkwardness didn’t start until he had actually made it to the bathroom.
That’s always a great way to start a story, isn’t it?
Clint Edwards, a dad blogger and author of I’m Sorry…Love, Your Husband, got an incredible story out of a road trip he took with his family.
Unfortunately for Clint, it didn’t involve the most pleasant part of the road trip, but good stories rarely do.
Just two hours into a 12-hour drive, Clint and his family stopped at a gas station for some snacks.
With his wife and two older kids sitting in the van, Clint had his four-year-old daughter in tow. But his search for Corn Flakes quickly ended when the diarrhea struck.
“We b-lined into the restroom, making it just in time,” Clint wrote. “I had no choice but to take my 4yo into the stall with me.”
I can recall my mom having to do the same when I was a kid. The difference, however, is that I wasn’t quite as eager to show how much attention I had paid during potty training.
“Aspen watched as I struggled, Moana light-up crocs on the wrong feet, blue eyes wide and supportive, hands clapping.”
Yep, even though she was aware of and grossed out by the serious liquid nastiness coming out of him, his daughter became his cheerleader.
“‘Good job, Daddy! Good job! You make two poops! Now three poops! I’m four!'”
Can’t say I’d show the same support in that situation but alrighty then .
“I’m not sure what happened exactly, if I’d eaten something wrong, or if it was the stress of traveling with kids, but what I do know is that my 4yo daughter is the Richard Simmons of pooping.”
“I’ve never felt so supported in anything in my whole life.”
“She commented on the size, smell, and sound. ‘Wow!’ she said. She commented on my work ethic. ‘You’re trying so hard!'”
“At one point I had to actually push her face away from the business end of things as she clapped and cried ‘You’re doing it, Daddy! You’re doing it!'”
“I suppose she’s gotten used to the positive reinforcement Mel and I give her each time she goes. And when I’m cheering her on in our family restroom, it seems normal, even appropriate.”
“But when the roles are reversed, it’s just, well, awkward.”
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It may not have been so awkward if it were just the two of them, but Clint was not a lucky man that day.
Indeed, they had an audience listening in from the next stall over, a man “obviously holding back tears of laughter.”
It turns out that guy had his breaking point, too, and his laughter “busted loose when she called me a ‘pooping-farting robot.'”
Clint and his daughter were able to make a hasty retreat after that, and of course he picked up some meds to help him through the rest of the trip.
He declined to explain to his wife what took him so long in the gas station, but Clint’s little helper was more than willing to fill Mommy and the rest of the family in on all the details.
“I sat in the driver’s seat. Mel patted my leg, ‘Nice work, Daddy.’
All I could do was say, ‘Thank you.'”
Many parents out there felt for Clint’s suffering, and had their own tales of bathroom woes to share.
Like one Facebook commenter whose four-year-old “once asked if she thought we might get to meet the lady with the biggest farts ever in the next stall over when she was done going potty.”
As another parent’s testimony confirmed, these situations just come with the parenting territory.
They shared a story of having to take her little son into a public bathroom with her, where he serenaded her with his potty training song. “Apparently that ditty was a huge hit with all the ladies in the women’s room.”
h/t: Facebook | No Idea What I’m Doing: A Daddy Blog
