Operation Tampon Drop: Urgently Inserting Some Privacy Into Mama's Bathroom!

(*I hastily scratched much of the following potty-mouthed rant in my bathroom journal. Yes, I keep a journal there. I never know when my word-slinging muse will call. Admit it. I can’t be the only pressed for time mama who reads and writes from her pot-perch.)

It’s not easy to relax on the toilet with my nosey 2-year-old, Pigtail Sprite, afoot, inquisitively peeping between my stubbly knees and reeking of her own freshly diaper-laid “business.” Gross, I know. Brace yourself if you're feeling brave enough to read on because I’m about to boldly “go there,” ‘k?



(“Master bedroom” makes it sound as if I boast some some seriously palatial digs. Don’t be fooled. I reside in a standard, three-bedroom, two-bath suburban Southern California stucco home. And I'm very grateful for it, uber-realtor bro-in-law and doting hubster.)

The other day I stupidly allowed my kids to exfoliate each other’s beady forearms with my husband’s electric toothbrush for kicks (sorry, honey ... I'll spring for a new one) while I willy nilly slapped foundation on before darting off in the minivan for this school or that function.

From my toilet view, I’m fully aware that my kids (mis)use my Dove deodorant stick, dragging it generously sometimes on their sleeves and even behind their knobby knees. At least someone around here remembers to use B.O. thwarting "pit juice," as my friend Nate nastily calls it.

Also, you never know when my my dueling aspiring barber sons might dunk their metrosexual in training fingers into my overpriced Bed Head hair goop and spontaneously spruce up each other’s super-California faux-hawk hairdos.

Yes, my three-kids-aster (disaster, if you didn't catch that) has turned my in name only “private bath” into a meddling kid owned and (dis)operated extension of the CVS Pharmacy feminine hygiene aisle. While I attempt my own potty progress, if you know what I mean, they can be found just inches away from trying-in-earnest me sharpening their fine motor skills via the following choice bathroom wreck-tivities:

- unwrapping tampons (more like tearing them to cottony shreds), then firing them from their plastic applicator cannons into the left-running by small hands sink above (this brand of “fire in the hole” tampon target practice actually requires mad doses of kid-skills and concentration)
- taking turns shotgunning dulce de leche flavored warming lube (this unfortunately and somewhat ashamedly on my part, happened only once ... Don't worry ... I shook my pint-sized offenders down after a slippery tug-o-war to extract the bottle of “it’s just some adults-only scented sunblock, kids” from their grubbing hands, then discreetly tucking it away in a much more appropriate under lock and key bedside location)
- numbly nibbling on various bad-for-your-skin Lever brand soaps (I think they got a few ideas from the holiday classic A Christmas Story, one of my probably not kid appropriate film favorites)
- artfully decorating each other from head to toe with thong-shaped Kotex mini pads (I wanted to take a picture of their menacing twist on “pin the thong on the donkey” for future blackmail but knew I shouldn’t)

Just last week Pigtail Sprite expertly peeled the shrink warp from a super-plus do-it-yourself O.B. tampon (TMI check received, thank you) and found an inventive newfangled use for it; She used it as a cotton-parachute-anchored string toy for our kitten, Tricks-y.

Pigtail Sprite dangled the semi-opened umbrella resembling fluid catcher by its flimsy rip-cord and drove the cat wild before I finally decided something was very wrong with that picture and concluded that a tampon was not an appropriate toy for a cat. So, I wonder, why is it appropriate for humans, especially the humans I created? Gawd’, my kids are going to be so screwed up by the time I’m through with them.

An emergency call to create potty privacy protocol is in urgent need around the casa di Domestic Slackstress, no? This should be a priority NOW immediate action-item when my 2-year-old daughter knows where a tampon goes better than your pubescent babysitter.

Of course, a much-needed bathroom privacy policy might be tough to carry out even for me, who can be found on any given Sunday slipping pieces of paper with messages like “I know what you did IN THERE last summer!” and “Do us all a favor and light a friggin' match, would ‘ya?!” beneath the bathroom door while my husband’s on the commode. (I have been known to do this from time to time for my own immature pleasure. Way to model behavior for your impressionable kids, mama!)

As evidenced in this Child Services self-incriminating privacy-wanted potty post, my bathroom boundaries are murky at best. In writing this, I’m reminded of how I really should not allow my kids to flow freely like a foul current of un-fresh air through the two doors that open into my supposedly "private" back bathroom.

So if I bitch about wanting to flush my spinning head instead of other unmentionables down the toilet while I’m anything but alone in the can, well, it’s my own stinkin’ fault.